Siblings(Rewrite)
by Amberstar of Thunderclan
Summary: The wizarding world is out of hiding. Julian's sister, Lizza, begins the next step in her Auror training. And then disaster strikes. War is knocking on DS9's door, and the siblings will have to fight for their honor, friends, loves, and galaxy as that door is answered. In the shadows, a viper waits to strike. With odd friends, and a little luck, can they survive the costs of war?
1. A Game of Wizard's Chess

**Oh, man! I can post new stories! It's so awesome! But poor old Jayfeattheris Awesome had a fic she wanted to post in celebration of her newfound posting abilities,** **but unfortunately, there is apparently a "2 fics per day" posting limit on new members. So, instead of her hogging the computer to rejuvenate her fics, _I_ get to post _Siblings_ on my new profile! **

**I am so excited like you wouldn't believe. from day one of this fic's internet existence, I had to speak through Jayfeattheris Awesome. Now, I can stand on my own two feet once more, and I can proudly scream to the world that this... is MY. _FIC_! Now, if you would all be so kind as to review and favorite, so that it actually looks like anybody reads this fic. I know, it's easy to access without favoriteing; a simple system of clicking a few links. But favoriteing looks good on paper, and this fic is good.**

 **At least, better than it was six months ago. Chapter two's overhaul is almost finished, so I won't be posting the rest of this fic until two is done, possibly three. I know, it sucks, but I need you to be brave for me, those of you who like to re-read fics over and over and over again. I promise I'll make it up to you all by posting the rest of the chapters as fast as I can once I get the super terrible ones re-written.**

 **Without further ado, finally all mine, here is the very first chapter of _Siblings_!**

 _ **The Search . Is . On.**_

 _The Wizarding World is out of hiding. Julian Bashir's little sister, Lizza, begins the next step in her training to become an Beyonding-Class Auror. And then disaster strikes. Presumed dead, Lizza is thrown into the nightmarish corner of the galaxy known as the Gamma Quadrant, where escaping a Dominion prison camp is easier said than done. Meanwhile, Julian attempts to grow closer to the girl of his dreams(to much teasing from Garak), finally starting to recover from his grief. Then Lizza's patronus arrives...and everything changes._

~ **Earth Year- September 7** **th** **, 2369 ~**

 **7.5 Star-Date Years Until Expatriation Event…**

Julian was talking about science again. Whenever this happened, Garak found it best to just smile and nod occasionally.

Now, he was, by no means uneducated, of course; the Obsidian Order had provided a fairly wide-range of education. But he was, by no mean, an expert or a total genius, like Julian Bashir was. He had only a vague knowledge of some of the things his friend went on about sometimes, when the topic of their weekly conversations turned from politics to science.

 _Friend? Since when did that happen?_ He mused absentmindedly as Julian went on about some sort of complex medical procedure, the name of which Garak couldn't pronounce. He had, recently, found that over the past year, he was beginning to make the biggest mistake an operative could make; he had actually begun to think of the doctor as a friend.

He had chosen Julian Bashir for a reason; he was perfect. High in the station hierarchy, hyper-active and chatty, and naive enough to let information slip. He had, naturally, been the best person to approach for Garak's purposes.

Julian's excitement at meeting him somewhat helped in securing their fake friendship, though Garak hadn't counted on rumors about his true purposes to have spread so quickly. It had become somewhat of an inside joke between the two of them.

He had yet to slip on something important regarding Starfleet's inner workings, but Garak was always careful to pay attention, just in case he did. He honestly didn't know when he had started looking forwards to his conversations with Julian; perhaps it had been a month ago, when he had found himself, deep in the monotony of running his shop, glancing many an impatient glance at his clock, and the odd sort of relief he had felt when lunch time had finally arrived. He had spent _that_ particular meal complaining profusely about the behavior of that day's costumers.

Hopefully, soon, the doctor would let slip some information that would be sure to secure his return to cardassia.

Meanwhile, he had decided that until such a time, he really didn't care if he had come to think of the doctor as a friend. And when that time came… well, that was what betrayal was for. He probably wouldn't feel too bad about _that_ , either. One tended to feel that way after having a previous career made up of betraying people on a daily basis.

"…and then, there's the trick of making sure that the marrow structure remains the same, because if it doesn't, well, things tend to get ugly, you know what I mean?" Julian continued rapidly. True to his protocol, Garak nodded and smiled. _No, I really don't know what you mean._ His thoughts contradicted.

Suddenly, glancing over Julian's shoulder, he noticed a young woman staring at them a short distance away. She was tall, with shoulder-length black hair, and shockingly bright green eyes. Her facial features were sharp and sleek, like a movie star's, and her lanky, skinny body stood with a certain... _attitude_ , was the only word he could think of.

There was a mischievous look on her face, which also had a child-like quality to it; so much so, he could assume she was fairly young, eighteen, or maybe twenty, perhaps. She was certainly old enough to be in Starfleet; otherwise, she wouldn't have been wearing a yellow and black uniform, meaning she was either an engineer, or a security officer.

The uniform itself was slightly different from what he had seen of Starfleet uniforms so far. He couldn't tell from here, but it looked as if her comm badge was a different color as well; red and silver, maybe? With a hint of black?

Suddenly, her eyes locked with his. A teasing smirk played across her face, and she put a finger to her lips, signaling for him to be quiet. Garak considered his options for a few moments. On one hand , she could be an undercover Obsidian Order agent, signaling him for some sort of operation in which to redeem himself.

One the other hand, based off her stance, the grin on her face, and the way she seemed to be singling out Julian, she could very well be just another mischievous young officer who was keen on pulling some act of mischief or the other. It had happened before, a few weeks ago; a young engineer had thought it funny to launch his mashed potatoes into Julian's hair with a spoon trebuchet. Pranking the Senior Staff, it seemed, was somewhat of a sport within the ranks of the younger officers.

However, before he could decide (It was really a lucky convenience that Julian was so busy talking, he hadn't noticed that Garak's attentions were directed somewhere else), the young woman was making her way over to their table with an over-exaggerated "I-am-sneaking" movement, the grin on her face broadening. Garak relaxed. _Mischievous young officer, it is then._

He also decided that he was now in a good enough mood to allow this prank, whatever it was, to happen; anything to get Julian to stop talking about science, really. Nodding and smiling was starting to get boring.

The young officer crept right up behind Julian, adapting a look that bordered on both ridiculous, and maniacal. Garak forced himself to keep a straight face, looking bordly at the doctor and he talked on and on, completely oblivious. Now that she was closer, Garak noticed that she had a small backpack slung over on her back, and that, strangely enough, there were no pips on her color, as if she had no rank at all.

"…so _I'm_ thinking, that if I can somehow get the riboflavin to—"

The woman slapped her hands down on his shoulders. "BOO!" She yelled. Julian practically jumped out of his skin, and he fell out of his chair as he jumped, twisting to try and see who his "attacker" was. Garak, trying to seem as dignified as possible, bit the inside of his lip to keep himself from laughing. It was _certainly_ not proper for _any_ member of the Obsidian Order to _laugh_ at something as ridiculous and childish as _this_. _Most improper, indeed!_ He mused. It was terribly hard to resist, though.

Of course, his amusement at what had transpired was soon replace by curiosity at what Julian said next.

"Lizza!" he shouted angrily, though the anger sounded half-hearted, "What have I told you about that? Why do you always do _that_?"

 _Now_ this _is certainly interesting._ So Doctor Bashir knew this woman, who was now standing cheerily with her hands folded behind her back.

"You told me to not do it, and I do it because it's funny, and to add on to the former answer, I think we both know I disregarded your request." She piped cheerfully. This spiked Garak's interest even further; her accent was not dissimilar to Julian's though it was a bit more pronounced.

Julian heaved himself to his feet, making it so that Garak could now see the peeved look on his face. "Lizza's" smile didn't diminish at Julian's frown. In fact, it seemed to grow more and more cocky with each passing second. After a few moments of staring each other down, Julian crossed his arms over his chest seriously and spoke.

"You brought the goods?" he asked. Garak's eyes narrowed. Was he witnessing some kind of joke, or was something more going on here?

"You know I did." Lizza told him, crossing her own arms as well. "I've been practicing as well. Have you?"

"Oh, don't you worry; I'll be beating you _flat_ this time."

"Hmm? _Really_ now? Isn't that what you said last time? And the time before that? And the time before _that_ , even?"

"Pft, _no_."

"Pft, _yes_."

"Oh _really_?"

" _Yes_ really."

"Well, we'll see who's talking after the carnage is over, _shall we_?"

"Yes, _we shall_! And the one who'll be talking; it's going to be _me_. _AGAIN_!"

Garak looked at them back and forth as they argued. What the heck were they talking about? He cleared his throat, letting them know he still existed. Their heads snapped around to look at him in an oddly cute way. Julian seemed to do a sort of mental fumble, as if suddenly realizing he had forgotten to introduce them.

"Oh, Lizza, this is Garak, one of my new friends on the station." He told the woman, who gave Garak the tiniest of nods, and a two-fingered "I'm-cool-and-you-know-it" salute. "Garak, this is Lizza, my sister."

It took a few seconds for him to register what Julian had just told him. _He has a_ sister!? He tried to remember if Julian had ever mentioned her. He vaguely recalled the name popping up… actually quite a few times, actually. He decided to blame his habit of over-observation. Whenever he wasn't the one talking, he would often find himself doing an extensive analysis of his surroundings; which tended to result in him not hearing what he was being told.

He imagined himself banging his head against a brick wall, seeing as he couldn't physically do so.

"Ah, yes. I've heard about you; it's good to finally put a face to the name." he lied. It was all he could do to protect his pride and act like he knew what he was talking about.

"Right. Oh, and the rules; my name is _Lizza_ , got that? No calling me 'Lizzy', or 'Lizz', or 'Elizabeth', or 'Ella', or 'Elly', or 'Beth', because 'Beth' sounds just plain stupid. There will be no vocal or visual support shown for the Chudley Cannons (goodness knows why they're still even around), the Appleby Arrows, the Sweetwater All-Stars, or the Quiberon Quafflepunchers; got that?" Lizza listed, giving him an intense look as she began bashing the Quidditch teams. _If I followed Quidditch, I think I would be terrified right now._

As it happened, though, Garak did _not_ follow Quidditch, much unlike the rest of the Alpha Quadrant. When the wizarding world had come out of hiding, a few short years after first contact, Quidditch had been quick to rise to the top of the sports universe, taking hold of every civilization that the humans visited, enrapturing the citizens with its prestige. It had even become popular in cardassia; and as a race that took everything, especially its competitions, seriously, cardassia had produced teams that could play against the Klingons (which was really saying something).

Cardassians didn't do a half job when it came to winning, and, as such, the teams would go to extreme lengths to win; even hiring several bajoran players during the occupation. They had even made it to the last Galactic Cup a few years ago, or so he had heard. Of course, he had been busy on Romulus during the galactic cup. And boy, had he seen some weird things during that particular operation. He had _actually_ seen a group of vulcans and romulans (getting along for once, probably because of the game) _yelling_ ; yes, _vulcans_ **_yelling_** , at the holographic projection of the qualifier game between the klingons and the breen.

All-in-all, the pressures and high-emotions of Quidditch had never really appealed to him.

"So, what is it, might I ask, that you are arguing about?" he inquired. He really needed to know if there was something weird or possibly illegal going on here; though Julian didn't _look_ like that kind of person, he had been wrong before.

"Oh, we were just discussing how I'm about to _beat him to a pulp_ in wizard's chess." The explained triumphantly, as if she had already won. The two siblings glared at each other in an "it-is-ON" kind of way.

He looked between the two of them. He had played chess before(the only Earth game other than Quidditch that cardassians really approved of-or enjoyed, for that matter), but he had never witnessed anyone being this serous about winning. He had also rarely seen anyone play wizard's chess; for obvious reasons, of course. He was a muggle, and though both worlds mixed quite a lot these days, there still many wizarding traditions that stuck strictly with wizards.

Now that he thought about it, was Lizza a witch? He took a moment to examine her quickly; he comm badge was definably weird; it was sleeker and thinner than Julian's, with a russet arrow on a gold background, rather than gold on silver, and it had a sleek, black shape running under the russet arrow, much like a ring around a planet. And now that she was closer, he could also notice that the sleeve of her right arm was slightly shorter than that of her left.

It had a loose, flapping strap attached to the cuff, and a button meant for said strap was placed just below her elbow. Aside from that, the cuff was also rimmed with a dark brown trimming, much unlike a normal Starfleet uniform. In addition to this, there was a kind of leather belt around her waist, which had hadn't noticed before; it had some sort of holster on either side of it, and there appeared to be some kind of badge clipped onto a small, leather pouch attached beside one of the holsters.

He couldn't quite make out the badge all too well. If he wanted to get a better look without looking conspicuous, he would have to get her to move a little more.

"Well, certainly don't let me stop you." He told them with a grin. Lizza and Julian ceased their pre-game glare, ending it with a hard handshake.

"Bring it on." Lizza said challengingly, sliding the backpack off her arms and slamming it onto the table. Garak jerked his food out of the way before the impact (not that he particularly cared for it all that much at this point; cracking Lizza Bashir's character was much more interesting). She took her brother's plate off the table, and-literally-threw it into the nearest trash can. Garak raised his eyebrows. _Quite the impressive aim, then._ He thought.

Julian gawked at her for a moment before responding, Lizza zipping open the bag and pulling out a rather handsome-looking leather case.

"On it, I shall bring!" he shot back, as his sister pulled up a chair, stealing it from one of the other nearby tables. He moved his chair so that he sat directly across her, and sat down angrily, fixing her with an intense, competitive glare. Garak couldn't help giving him a look.

"Doctor, that doesn't make any sense." He told him witheringly.

"Garak," Lizza told him seriously, slapping a small, faser-pistol-sized device down on the table beside the chess box, "nothing about us makes any sense."

As he looked at her confusedly, she slid the backpack off of the table, and lifted the top off of the box. Carefully, her brother lifted the contents out; a full chess board with all of it's pieces already set. Lizza removed the box and set it down on the floor next to the now-empty backpack.

Julian set the chess board down between them; Lizza didn't object when he set it so that his were the white pieces. Lizza flicked a switch on the device she had brought out. Hand still on it, she looked up at her brother. Garak now had a front-row-seat to what was sure to be an interesting competition. He briefly wondered, " _What might I have just gotten myself into?_ " before deciding that his sibling rivalry couldn't-and wouldn't- be able to affect him in the slightest.

"You ready to lose, Jul?" Lizza asked intensely, eyes narrowed. Julian's jaw twitched at the nickname.

"Bring it on... _Beth_." he shot back. _Oh, dear... what_ have I gotten myself into?

"Let it begin." Lizza declared simply, flicking on the device.

 _Immigration Song_ blared on, making nearby lunch-eaters jump.

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"Knight to E5." Lizza commanded. Her black horse moved forwards, then reared and kicked Julian's pawn off the board, shattering it in two.

Julian collected the broken piece with a scowl. He twirled his wand, as looked at the board thoughtfully. The game had, at this point, been going on for about an hour; way past time for Garak to return to his shop, but he really didn't care at this point. Lizza had declared a check in her last turn.

The device that Lizza was playing her music on, the PMD (Pocket Music Device), was now playing a song that, according to Lizza, was called _T.N.T_ , by some old Earth band called _AD/CD_ , or something like that. From what he had gathered from this game, was that she was a good tactician, and good at bluffing.

She looked over the board with intelligent eyes before each move, most of which usually didn't seem to take her long to decide upon. In fact, her every movement, on the chess board, and within her physical self, seemed to be influenced by the beat of whatever song the PMD was playing. Julian, however, took longer in his decisions; in fact, by Garak's estimations, over half the time they had been here had been spent watching him decide what to do next.

The music that Lizza seemed to find strength in, seemed to be a horrible distraction to her brother. This, Garak, had noticed, was probably(from what he had observed from the game, and from what he had gathered from their pre-game taunting) why Lizza had been able to beat Julian as frequently as she seemed to have. While her actions(and, perhaps, her thoughts), ran as fast as the music she was playing, Julian, though seeming to enjoy the music itself, looked as though he were constantly trying to deliberately go against the beat as much as possible.

It was a clever distraction strategy that Lizza had implemented; one that Julian might not even notice. He guessed, though he was no neurologist, that the distraction was subconscious, as he himself was experiencing the desire to _resist tapping his foot as an instinctual reaction to the rythm_.

"Castle to E5." Julian finally ordered. _About time_

"You have about as much sense as a cave troll, you egg yolk!" grumbled his piece as it moved forward.

Garak couldn't help the snicker that escaped him(because let's face it; it _was_ pretty funny), but managed to regain his nonchalant mask as Julian whipped his head around to glare at him.

"Please; do continue." he insisted plainly. He now saw exactly what Lizza had been doing.

"Bishop to A4" she commanded lazily.

Julian stared at the board blankly as pieces of his king were scattered to the other end of the promenade.

"Best 2 out of three?" Lizza inquired with mock sympathy. Julian let out a heavy sigh and sat back in his seat.

"No. My lunch break was over a while ago." he said mournfully.

"Oh, well. I'm sure Commander Sisko would understand. I had to steal you for a reason, you know." Lizza shrugged, grinning at him and turning of her PMD.

"A very well played game, have to say." Garak commented, nodding to Lizza." I can see right now that I might just have to play against you."

"That depends." Lizza said slyly, grinning. "Are you a worthy opponent?"

He opened his mouth, clever retort at the ready, but Julian interrupted him before he could speak.

"No! No, sorry; as much as I would _love_ to see you two duke it out, Sisko _will_ kill me if I'm any more late than I already am." He protested, hands raised defensively.

"Well, you don't have to watch. Marina's busy helping Chief Cortez prep the _Centurion_ , and Wilark gave me the day off for training. I've got six more hours of shore leave to kill, and I still feel like beating people on the board." she explained, waving her hand to indicate the chess board, which more or less now resembled a battlefield.

Julian rolled his eyes, and got up, stretching, before walking off, presumably to find the scattered pieces of his material. Lizza made an odd little twitching motion with her right wrist, and a wand seemed to shoot up out of her sleeve and into her grasp. Garak's eyebrows arched high up. _Well,_ that's _something new._

" _Repairo_." she said casually, pointing her wand at one of her broken pawns. Her pieces already seemed to trust her, and weren't glaring at her the way Julian's had. Garak ran through various scenarios in his mind, wondering how best to initiate a conversation.

"Well, I've certainly never seen someone's wand shoot out of their sleeve before." he commented. From what he had seen of her, it seemed like the best way to talk to her.

"Well, it's this new holster thing they're testing. My mentor, Wilark; he doesn't like them. Think's that they're clunky." she told him, shrugging.

"Mentor? So you're in some sort of training program?" he inquired.

"Yeah. The A.A.T.P., for Beyonder Class." she said proudly, lifting her chin. At Garak's confused look, she added,"You know? Accelerated Auror Training Program?"

"No, really; I don't." he told her wryly. He felt a shiver slip down his spine. _An_ _Auror in training? I'll have to be more careful about what I say around her._ So, that explained her odd uniform, and quite possibly the badge as well.

"Okay!" came Julian's voice as he returned to their table, cradling many shards of broken white chess pieces. "So, good to see you haven't killed each other yet. All is well, yeah?"

"Oh, yes, I prefer to kill people on the battlefield; not at the dinner table. That would just be plain rude." Lizza announced forlornly, indicating the chess board. Julian rolled his eyes, and muttered _repairo_ under his breath. No sooner were the first chess pieces whole again, than they were complaining loudly about how much of an idiot Julian was.

Garak, feeling a bit more open than usual for some reason, gave his friend a puppy-dog look of mock sympathy. The doctor stuck his tongue out at him.

"Oh, bug off, Garak!" he said dejectedly.

"Nope!" the cardassian answered cheerily. Julian rolled his eyes, and Lizza gave the tailor a thumbs up of approval.

"I'm not sure if I should leave you two alone together; the Alpha Quadrant can only take so much sarcasm before the economy collapses." Doctor Bashir said solemnly, looking at the two of them worriedly.

"Don't worry, Julian." Lizza comforted, touching her brother's hand with her own, and speaking with a motherly softness, "One game of chess isn't going to crash the economy."

"Unless, of course, we decide to play chess with starships; _that_ would ruin the economy." Garak piped helpfully. He didn't know what was coming over him; for some reason, it appeared as if Julian's childishness had rubbed off on him somehow. He hadn't partaken in sarcastic banter for... well, he didn't know how long; but it had been a while, and he certainly didn't remember feeling this disgustingly cheerful while he had last done it.

"You _really_ aren't helping your case." Julian said worriedly, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Look, dude," Lizza told him, "I'll meet up with you a bit before the _Centurion_ leaves; depending on how long it takes to beat Garak in several rounds of chess, that is."

Julian frowned at her, and Garak felt a pulse of apprehension go through him. Several _rounds?! I have a shop to run! I can't play for several rounds!_ Come to think of it, when had he decided on playing _at all_? Hadn't he meant the comment about playing Lizza as sarcastic?

 _Well, it_ has _been a while since I've played a game of tactics..._ And Lizza seemed like a decent enough opponent; perhaps even bored with winning against her easily-hoodwinked brother.

"Well, I guess I'll see you later then." Julian shrugged, looking at his wristwatch. He paused for a moment, before stooping down and taking Lizza's backpack.

"Oi! Just what do you think _your_ doing?" she protested as he made off with her bag. He shot her a grin over his shoulder.

"Why, dear sister, I'm ensuring your return! Just think of it as incentive to _actually_ come and visit me before you leave." He teased. Lizza jerked back in her seat, clutching a hand to her heart with and expression of mock hurt.

"Why, _Julian_! When have I _ever_ taken off without saying goodbye?" she exclaimed. The doctor rolled his eyes, turning away.

"Since your fourth year at Hogwarts." He called as he left. His form dissolved into the daily crowd of people, bustling along the promenade on various errands.

Now alone with Lizza, Garak wondered what in the galaxy had possessed him to agree to this game as the young woman adopted a malicious grin worthy of a homicidal psychopath.

"Right then." She said, rubbing her hands together. "White or black?"

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Julian put up the last of the equipment, after having completed a rather successful knee surgery (how _anybody_ could have gotten a Lego brick lodged that deep in their skin, he had no idea). Looking at the infirmary clock, he saw that it was only 5:67. _One more hour to go until Lizza has to leave._

He glanced at the entrance anxiously, hoping childishly that she would waltz on in right at that moment, declaring either victory or defeat against Garak. Her backpack lay near the entryway, awaiting its owner.

The ship that Lizza was assigned to, the _USS Centurion_ , was going on a 3-month-long expedition into the Gamma Quadrant, to map out new systems far out in the deep space between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants. It would be a long assignment, but his sister had been ecstatic to tell him about it.

It would be her first test in the field as a Beyonder-in-training. Beyonders were Aurors who were typically assigned to exploration expeditions, Deep Space Stations, and various trade routs, protecting the explorers, or working alongside other Aurors in the pursuit of Dark Wizards suspected of fleeing into deep space.

It was a broad job description, and as such, the Beyonder Class Aurors were the most elite of them all. Only the _best_ recruits made it through the training program, and more recruits washed out of the Beyonder Course than any other. Add _that_ to the fact they had put his sister into the A.A.T.P., he was surprised that she hadn't broken under the stress already.

 _I guess her enthusiasm makes up for the stress._ He thought as he started stacking data pads, though so mentally distracted that he kept mixing them up, accidentally placing a pad regarding somebodies dental exam in with a stack recording the day's minor mishaps(a stubbed toe, a bad finger cut, a thumbtack impaling somebodies heel, among other things).

Over-enthusiasm was a family special, as far as him and Lizza were concerned. After giving up on his dream of becoming a professional tennis player (he had feared that there was too much risk of over-preforming and revealing his engineering by accident), he had studied with a passion, raging to get through medical school and go to Starfleet. He had absolutely stank at the physical fitness part of Starfleet basic training, but they had decided that his skill as a doctor made up for it.

He had only been a recruit, fresh out of medical school and half a month through his Starfleet training, when the entire galaxy had gone into a state of panic. The instructors had burst into the classroom, just as the teacher had been explaining the varying effects of neuro-shock, and started yelling orders at the recruits and their teacher.

The borg attack had shaken everybody, though none so more than Lizza; when a borg ship had broken Earth's defense, it had descended upon the Starfleet Academy, damaged, and had crashed through the Medical Wing, where Julian had been learning about neuro-shock just hours before. Himself and the other newer recruits, who had been ordered to take shelter, had felt the explosion from within the underground bunker they had been hiding in.

Lizza, who had been starting her sixth year of Hogwarts at the time, had flooed in from Hogsmeade after the battle with her best friend, Ethan, tailing her, frantically examining Julian for injuries. After the news of impending attack had reached the ears of Hogwarts's Headmaster, Headmaster Eliss, the school had been locked down, and protective wards had been frantically established.

Lizza and a few other older students, including her Slytherin friend, Ethan Woods, had posted themselves loyally at all entrances to the school, even perching themselves on top of the Owlry and astronomy towers; a few Gryffindors had allegedly climbed out of windows in the Gryffindor tower as well, helping keep watch over the skies as the battle raged from beyond the atmosphere. No matter how much the teachers had yelled at them to "stand down and leave it to the grown-ups", the students had stood firmly, wands out and pointing at the sky as younger students were rushed into the Chamber of Protection(perhaps the most useful think Salazaar Slytherin had left at Hogwarts).Thankfully, it had never come to a fight.

After finding his physical condition to be satisfactory, Lizza had began fuming and raging, as had Ethan. Then, standing on some of the rubble of Starfleet Academy, she had boldly declared that she would become an Auror; the best that had ever lived. And not only had the attack sparked Lizza's passion for protection,; it had given Julian a sense of urgency that hadn't been there before.

After the attack, he had blazed through his classes and training with a passion, spending less and less time with his friends and more and more time studying and practicing. Lizza had adapted a similar attitude. She had stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas that year, and the year afterwards, and had done the same for Easter. During that summer(which would usually have been spent over at her friend, Luke's, place), she had invited Ethan over constantly, the two of them spending their afternoons dueling in the various environments that surrounded the Bashir residence. And if Ethan wasn't available? Well, Julian, when he was home, had taken to hiding in his closet if Ethan wasn't around; he didn't favor being the target of Lizza's killer Bat-Bogey hex, thank you very much!

All in all, the two of them were absolutely fanatical about their careers, that was for sure. He just hoped she would never end up having to fight in a war, or do something incredibly stupid and dangerous, or have to go under cover for months at a time like some Aurors had to...

A knock at the entrance jerked him out of his reminiscing. Whirling, he saw his sister leaning against the doorway, grinning, the chess set bock tucked under one arm, the PMD in one hand.

"Candy gram." she announced plainly. He rolled his eyes.

"Oh, yes. What is it this time; a dungbomb disguised as a lollipop?" he said wryly.

"Oh, come on! That was _one time_!" she exclaimed, eyes wide. She went over to her backpack and started to load it up.

He went over to her, crouching down beside her. He felt another thrill of pleasure; since beginning his Starfleet career, he had only gotten to see her so very few times. He had gained a new appreciation for her presence since entering the grown-up world. _Guess it goes to say; you really don't appreciate this stuff till you only get to see it every other year or so…_

"Who won?" he asked, leaning back on his heels.

"Ask Garak." Lizza replied, casting him a cheeky grin as she stuffed the chess set into the largest pocket.

"Now, your training to be an Auror; you should know, even after one game with him, that he lies about most things." He told her, wondering just how far into her profiling lessons she was into.

"Hey! I can't spot a liar from fifty miles away yet!" she protested, zipping up her bag and sitting back on her heels similarly to how he was, throwing up her hands innocently. "Give me a couple of years! Then I'll finally know who dyed my hair pink in the incident of 64'. I've been suspecting Luke for years, but you never know…"

"Hey, I _swear_ , it wasn't me!" it was his turn to look innocent now. "You know very well that there was always that risk whenever you stayed at Luke's place for the Christmas Holidays!"

"You _do_ realize that denial just makes you look guiltier, right?" she arched one eyebrow at him slyly.

"I thought you just said you weren't an expert yet!" he exclaimed, flopping his arms to his sides dramatically.

"Brother dearest, are you confessing?" Lizza inquired. _Oh, snap._ He had fallen right into _that_ slip-up. He grinned at her sheepishly.

Lizza let out an exasperated gasp, pulling her left arm into her sleeve and hitting him repeatedly with the now-floppy fabric. He cringed dramatically, nearly overbalancing.

"I knew it was you! You dirty little-!" she exclaimed, hitting him with her sleeve to punctuate each word. Julian, however, decided it was time to fight back. Pulling down both his own sleeves, he struck back at her, and soon they were laughing raucously, each of them flailing their arms around in the general direction of the other.

The battle lost its glory when Julian got hit in the eye and Lizza took a fist to the chin.

"Well, maybe I am a _little_ sorry…" he claimed, rubbing his eye painfully as Lizza massaged her jaw.

They sat there a few moments reminiscing. _How long has it been since we were like this?_ He wondered. Had it been during his sister's early Hogwarts years? During one of his visits from Junior Medical School, perhaps? Or was it right before he had shipped off to Deep Space Nine, as Lizza was starting her time as a Starfleet Cadet?

He smiled at her. She was just like how he remembered. If Lizza ever took interest in finding a bachelor, she'd have every man in the quadrant lined up trying to win her over. Her sleek, polished facial features, with her neatly-rounded triangular chin and stylishly messy hair (much like Julian's own), painted the picture every man probably saw when he thought about what his dream girl would look like. But no, Lizza was a tomboy to her core; she had very few female friends, and possessed an uncanny passion for racing brooms, sports ships, and the kind of down-and-dirty work that the Auror's life involved.

She was, in some ways, his opposite; while he preferred the peaceful way to doing the right thing, and often stuck to the rules like a flea to a dog( _most_ of the time), Lizza could get down right nasty. Her first "catch" as an Auror-in-training had involved a man who had been wanted for assaulting and killing several children. She had _literally_ blasted him to pieces. Kind of by accident, of course-she had a mysteriously powerful Reductor Curse-but scary none the less. He remember well the day it had happened; she had been terrified, but had gotten over it quickly.

She had always excelled at curses and hexes like that, whereas he had been a total failure. His strength was in Charms and Transfiguration, where hers was in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions. He had a fascination with healing and medicine, while she had a fiery passion to protect and fight. Sitting here, in DS9's infirmary, laughing like they had used to, it was easy to forget how different the worlds they lived in where.

"So… how are you, anyway? I mean, speaking of liars…you holding up alright?" Lizza started quietly, her crooked smile dissolving. Julian felt his own face crease into a frown. _She just_ had _to bring "it" up…_

He nodded slowly. "Okay. At least, nobody seems to suspect, anyway. It's not something people usually assume when they meet somebody. I've managed to hold back enough so far to make it look convincing. At least, I _hope_ I've made it look convincing."

"Well, just remember not to get too smart about something; nothing crazy, like, _exactly_ how long it would take to reach Earth and back without a warp drive or something. Yeah, probably not do anything like that." She told him, shrugging. He nodded again solemnly, agreeing. Though, mentally, he did the math. _Whoa,_ he though as the result came to him, _NOT a trip I want to make._

Lizza's Comm badge gave a beep.

 _"_ _Wilark to Bashir."_ Came a gruff voice. Lizza hit her badge.

"Yeeeeeeees?" she asked innocently.

 _"_ _Get your sarcastic hind end on this ship before I drag you on it myself!"_ the voice replied. _"_ _NOW!"_

The badge gave another beep.

"He adores me." Lizza told Julian with a grin.

"Well," Julian said, pushing himself to his feet," you heard the man. And I have a cardassian tailor to question, apparently. Unless you feel like relenting?"

"Oh, no," Lizza told him, standing and swinging her backpack over her shoulder, "you have the honors; I insist."

"Afraid to admit defeat?" he questioned slyly. She gave him a playful smirk.

"Nah. I just like to make things difficult for you; we've known that since my third year, remember?" she stated wryly. Julian loved the smile that was plastering itself all over his face. _Why can't I see her more often? I love being in Starfleet… but sometimes I wonder if it's worth not seeing her for years at a time._

"Well… I suppose I'll see you in three month, then…" he said sadly. Lizza's smile turned sad, too.

"I guess, maybe. Unless Wilark has me busting my butt with more stealth training." She agreed.

He pulled her into a hug, and the slightly smaller woman wrapped her free arm around him.

"You be careful out there, sis." He told her seriously as they broke away.

She nodded sternly, her Auror personality leaking out onto her features. "You too; from what you've told me, some really crazy weird things go on around this station."

"You know _that's_ right." He sighed. Lizza offered him one more smile, before turning away and disappearing out the infirmary entrance.

 _She'll be fine._ He told himself, trying to ease the sudden fear that plucked at him from every angle. _She's got a good mentor, with a good crew. Besides, what could possibly go wrong on a simple cartography mission?_

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Dax passed through the Infirmary entrance, heart pounding in her chest, sorrow and pity pulsing through her. She knew all too well what Julian was going to go through; she had been through it so many times over the last three hundred years. But telling someone that it was _their_ turn to grieve like this… it was always the hardest.

She saw Julian, puttering around as usual, organizing a new shipment of Essence of Murtlap. He was humming the bugle-call of Puddlemere United. _Oh, Julian… I really wish this weren't true…_

The bubbly, ever-happy, hyper-active Doctor Bashir was the last person you would expect tragedy to befall. It felt so _wrong_ , for _him_ of all people, to have this happen to them.

But it had happened, and it was now up to her to tell him. She cleared her throat. He turned, grinning broadly.

" _Helloooo_ , Jedzia!" he said flirtatiously. _Even now, he's flirting with me, with no idea what I'm about to say…_ she though with a pang.

"Julian… there something that you need to know." She started, shuffling her feet. She felt strangely guilty, even though she had done nothing to be guilty of. The doctor's face fell as he realized how solemn she looked.

"What? What's wrong, Jedzia? Did something happen?" he asked her worriedly, stepping forwards and looking her up and down, as if checking for injuries.

"Something…something _did_ happen, Julian… but it doesn't involve me." She told him softly. There was nothing she could do to cushion the blow, no matter how gentle she was.

"What? What is it?" he demanded urgently, eyes wide. Dax glance at the floor, and then the wall, both of which were suddenly very interesting. Or perhaps it felt better to look at them rather than see _everything_ shatter in Julian's eyes.

"Odo and Chief O'Brian found the source of the distress signal." She braced herself for what she was about to say. "They found the wreckage, and …bodies. There were no survivors. I'm so sorry… It was the _Centurion_."

And that was when the world ended, not with a whimper, or a bang, but with the long, lonely wail that rose out from the Infirmary on that late Monday morning.

 **PLEASE REVEIW! I'm so lonely... Oh, and to those of you who are still wondering, the original post of Siblings will be taken down on the 22nd of February. And when I say "taken down", I mean turned into an empty fic slot. This way, if the "Profile Death Glitch" ever happens again, Jayfeattheris Awesome will have five empty fic slots on her old profile to use if she ever needs them.**

 **L-*Ahhh, it's great to finally be home.***

 **You just died.**

 **L-* Who are you?; Jayfeattheris Awesome? I was _just saying_ how good it felt to finally be in your custody. You know Jay's OC, Emerilla?***

 **Yeah. What about her?**

 ***She was driving me crazy! She kept singing that dumb song that Jayfeatther posted on her Bio three years ago. It was _HORRIBLE_.***

 **Yes, yes I know, I know; there, there little OC, you're safe with mama now. *strokes head***

 **REVEIW! SINCE IT'S BEEN RE-POSTED, IT HAS NO REVEIWS! IT NEEDS PUBLICITY!**


	2. Captured

**I know, I know, I pulled a Jayfeatther; I waited a month before updateing. But the update is here now, and you all can compare it to the old chapter two(which is terrible). You'll also noticed that I finally got around to labeling this as a rewrite. This update only took as long as it did because I was mourning; half this fic got deleted somehow. That's about...fifteen+ future chapters. Well, future chapter from the point of chapter 17 of the old version of this , I still got seventeen chapters of _Siblings_ in storage, but other than that, I have to re-write all of the rest of _Lost, Missing, Found_. **

**By the way, there is a preview of _The War Ignites_ on the last post of the old version of this! I wouldn't have put it there if I had known half my fic would be deleted, but what's done is done! There are also a few peeks at the future of this series on my Bio(again, I put that there when half this stuff was being put on paper). Now, The War Ignites didn't lose any chapters, it was just part one of this fic. All the ficletts I've pre-written are still in one piece, and to make up for such a late update, I'm considering posting one early. Nothing that gives away too much plot; just a quick thing about Lizza and Ethan.**

 **Who's Ethan, again, you may ask? Well, read on!**

Lizza had been on the _USS. Centurion_ for three months now. It had, so far, been pleasant. If pleasant meant "being pushed to the breaking point by your mentor in between sleeping, eating, undergoing 'Basic Physical Combat Training for Starfleet Security Officers', and making sure you remembered when to make rem contact with your dream liaison".

Honestly, sometimes she thought it might all kill her. She desperately wished that her fellow Auror in training, Ethan Woods, had decided to be a Beyonder. But he had not; he preferred to have "both feet on the ground. More specifically, Earth ground".

He had never been too terribly comfortable in space.

That was probably his "Slytherin caution" as he called it. This "Slytherin caution" had both been a blessing and a curse during their Hogwarts years.

Ethan had been the first person she had met on the Hogwarts express. Julian was a prefect, so he had had to go down to the prefect's carriage after getting her settled into her own compartment. Then Ethan had come along, looking for a space to sit, and they had quickly bonded over their shared interest in racing brooms.

It had been a bit of a disappointment, really to be sorted into two houses that were notorious for butting heads with each other. But in the end, with his "Slytherin caution" and her "Gryffindor cautionlessness", they had become infamous. They had even given trouble-making a few shots, and had been so good at it, they had scratched their names out on the "Wall of Sensies"; a compartment on the Hogwarts Express that had the names of every trouble-maker of the past few centuries scratched out into the wall below the window.

As she sat in the mess hall at a table full of other young officers, she recalled the many things and names that had been scratched out onto the wall; the topic of conversation _was_ pranks, after all!

"My personal favorite, other than Ethan's and my own, of course, has to be what might be the oldest carvings on there. "she told them. The other officers sat rapped with attention, as none of them were wizards or witches like herself." Some say they're the ones who started the Wall of Sensies in the first place. All it says is 'The Marauders wuz here'. That's it. And whoever they were, generations of young pranksters have carved their legends up beside them."

"What else is on the wall? Like, are there any historically important names or something?" Marina asked. The young trill was freshly joined to a symbiont named Faolan, with about five lifetimes worth of memories to her name. She had been the first person Lizza had met on the _Centurion_ , and the Ensign had been her friend ever since.

"Well, there is one or two; 'Teddy Lupin would like to claim credit for kicking Missus Norris ', and 'Fred Weasley wuz here, too', followed by 'So wuz George'." Lizza informed excitedly. " Fred and George Weasley founded the triple W, remember. Those two were right next to the 'Marauders wuz here', and it had arrows pointing to it. For some reason the Marauders one also had the words 'Our Heros' carved out above it. No idea what that is about."

Ervine shook his narrow, scaly head. "I can only imagine the trouble you young wizards cause at school. With the contraptions I've seen… did I ever tell about the time a Fanged Frisbee bit my tail and left a scar?"

"Oh, please, Ervine; Fanged Frisbees don't leave scars! They don't even hurt! And I should know; my little brother is a wizard." Cassandra scoffed. The draconian flared his wings by a small amount, indignation flashing onto his face.

"No, really! Just look! Right _there_ , at the very tip; you can _plainly_ see, right _there_ , where the blasted frisbee sunk it's teeth into!" he insisted, swinging his tail around and plopping it down on the table, pointing at the tip of it-which looked perfectly fine, the glossy, black scales untarnished by any scars whatsoever. Lizza lifted her plate and cup off of the table hastily before the appendage thumped down, causing everyone's drink to spill.

"Gah!" Philip groaned as his juice spilled all over his pants. Cassandra leaned back panicedly, pulling her legs up to her chest as her cup rolled over in her direction, spilling its caffeinated contents and spreading it all across the surface of the table.

Palamas(whose first name Lizza didn't know), tried to take her plate off the table before her cup could spill on it, but the edge hit said cup and caused it to let loose its contents on Palamas. Instead, the Asian letting out a squealed yelp as water cascaded all over her pants and front. Marina jumped up out of her seat next to Lizza, trying to catch her cup before it could spill over onto the table. She only succeeded, however, in getting milk all over her hands as the cup slipped out of her grasp as it fell, leaving a devastating white puddle on the table in it's wake.

With most of the table groaning in frustration, and Ervine looking quite sheepish, Lizza set her plate back down again. Trying not to crack up, she casually took a sip of her pumpkin juice, and then set the cup down, picking up one of her fish fingers. She shook it in Ervine's direction repremandedly.

"No tails on the table, please." She said, taking a bite of fish finger. Cassandra snickered as Philip groaned again, trying in vain to soak up the juice with a cloth before it settled into his uniform.

"Yeah… sorry about that, guys." The dragon-like alien apologized. Lifting his tail-now dripping with milk, juice, and other various drinks- off of the tabled, frowning at the dripping liquids that it was now covered in.

"By the way; I saw no such scar! Your scale are perfectly perfect, Ervine." Lizza added, swallowing.

"Then there is obviously something wrong with your eyes!" he scoffed with a twitch of his long, glossy neck.

Ervine was one of a recently discovered race; the draconians. Bipedal, a semi-advanced society, and not dissimilar to earths dragons, Ervine was one of the few draconians that wanted to leave his home planted, Zrachis. For such an advanced society, their lives were based almost completely off of survival; there was no currency, there were no luxuries such as easy transport, and there were no energy weapons.

It was, in fact, from what Lizza had heard, a very 'simple' planet. You hunt, you fight, you farm, you lead, you eat, you sleep. "If you want something, you have to make a trade to get it", as Ervine had told her once.

 _If I ever retire, I'm going to live on Zrachis._ She had decided. Living off of retirement money was a bore; working for you continued survival sounded like early paradise to her.

"That, or there's something wrong with _your_ eyes." Philip pointed out. The black draconian let out a snort, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, please! My people have the best eyesight in the Quadrant! Wait, no; the _Galaxy_!" he announce proudly.

"Say what you like; there's still no scar." She said, taking another bite of fish finger.

He was just opening his mouth to respond-probably with another comment about her eyesight, Lizza thought- when Lizza's comm badge gave a beep.

 _"Bashir, GET YOUR *** DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"_ Wilark's voice boomed before she could hit her badge.

"Well, sir, would you like me to send it to you through priority shipping, or would you like me to deliver it myself?" she retorted slyly. _"Butt_ , I have to warn you though, I'm going to need it later."

Everyone at the table snickered, and Lizza felt a surge of satisfaction as the badged beeped, her mentor leaving her no response to the comment.

" Well, you better not leave him _gas_ ping for quips for long; he might come up with a _butt_ er one!" Cassandra managed to say through a fit of barely contained giggles.

"Well, I don't mean to toot my own horn, here, but I doubt he could cut one better than mine." Lizza boasted, trying-and failing- to keep a straight face. _Ohhh, my gosh; we sound like a bunch of six-year-olds!_

"Hmm. I'm not so sure about that; he _is_ silent but deadly." Ervine pointed out, grinning. The giggles stopped, and they all looked at him. Lizza facepalmed. _That didn't make any sense!_

"Ervine, that doesn't make any sense." Philip echoed her thoughts. The draconian shrugged, the grin still on his face.

"Sorry guys; I've still got to get the hang of this who 'pun' business." he said.

Lizza stood and stretched, rolling her shoulders and relishing the satisfactory popping that resulted. Those who were wearing their drinks also got up, Philip wincing as his soaked uniform flopped around. He looked down at it mournfully.

"This was my only clean shirt." he moaned. Marina patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.

"I'm sure Chief Cortez can find you something. I mean, it's not like their could to let you go crawling around in the plasma ducts with a wet shirt." She told him. Palamas nodded agreeingly.

"If worse comes to worst, you could always stand in front of the reactor vents for a few minutes." the Asian suggested.

"I can't do _that_! You know I can't do that!" Philip gasped, looking affronted. "That would be a _major_ breach of saftey protocol!"

"Just passing around suggestions." Palamas raised her hands innocently.

"I'll see you guys later. Just try not to catch hypothermia before dinner; we're going to be having a _luxury_ soaking in tomato stew, I hear." she shrugged as she backed off towards the exit."Who knows; maybe it will get rid of Ervine's B.O."

She turned around completely, leaving to a chorus of laughter and vehement protests behind her. _I love this place!_ She thought as she made her way down the hallway, a spring in her step. She fingered the rem stone around her neck, twisting it on it's leather strap and feeling the unnatural smoothness of it.

In a month's time, she would finally get to use it. She pictured her contact, as she was supposed to every day; dirty blond hair, sleeked back but loose, as if whatever hair products he used didn't work properly, eyes as blue as a clear summer day, square, black, thick-rimmed glasses, always stretching his sweater collar out in a nervous tick. She let go of the rem stone as she felt a strange tingle run up the back of her neck; she had nearly used it by accident.

 _Hmm. He must still be asleep, then._ She checked her watch, and did the math; it would be twelve O'clock in the afternoon in London right now. She shook her head.

 _Good grief; he's even more hard core than Julian!_

Suddenly, the ship pitched violently, throwing her to the floor. _WHAT THE WHAT!?_

"Battle stations!" Captain vice's voice commanded over the _Centurion_ 's comm systems. _Battle stations-armory with Wilark._ She scrambled to her feet, spotting the turbo lift at the end of the hall.

She rushed there as fast as her legs could carry her, and as fast as the heavy blows to the starship would allow. Before she could get to the turbo lift, a new order came over the comms:

"Abandon ship."

She grabbed the first two Starfleet officers she could find, and turned on the spot, letting the need to get to the escape pod fill her entire being. Like always when she apparated, the words _desperation_ , _diarrhea_ , and _depredation_ echoed through her mind.

She opened her eyes, and found herself and the officers she had grabbed on one of the _Centurion_ 's many escape pods.

"How…?" one of the rescued officers questioned, looking at her confusedly. She pointed to her comm badge, which looked so much different than the normal ones; a symbol of her magical abilities.

"Oh." The officer said.

More Starfleet personnel rushed into the escape pods, all previous organization forgotten in the mad dash for survival. A warning bell rang out, telling all that the ship was on it's final legs, that the straw was coming to break the camel's back.

Lizza felt the pod jerk as it was ejected, and she felt her heart break for the people who hadn't made it in time. For a moment, she considered apparating back and trying to bring some more people onto her pod, but before she could act, she saw what had been her home for the past three months go up in a circular fireball.

She felt like something inside her was breaking, shifting, getting jumbled around like fruit bits in a milkshake. Three months aboard a starship, three months of training to become a real solder, three months of making friends and fulfilling every dream she had had for the past three years...

Three months worth of memories. Blown away just like that.

And then she saw one of the escape pods go the same way. And then another, and another, until she was certain they were the last pod the strange ships had left to destroy. _He has to know what happened! These ships won't stop with us, whoever they work for will certainly set eyes on the Alpha quadrant. It won't end here. Beware the black ships. They are hostile._

" _Expecto patronum_!" she shouted, letting her most glorious memory fill her thoughts; the day she had become an animagus. It was hard to focus on that day, her terror pulsing through her, knowing that any moment now, she would be blown to bits. But the silver-white wolf bounded out of her wand anyway, as shining and glorious as ever.

"Find my brother. Tell him." She said to it. It nodded and bounded through the wall. As several peopled looked at it, bewildered, she wondered if it would still deliver its message when she was dead. _Probably not._

She braced herself. She briefly wondered if she could hit one of the ships with a Reductor curse if she used the bubble-head charm on herself, before remembering that if the vacuum didn't kill her, the explosion would.

Suddenly, she felt the same, odd feeling she would get whenever she was in a transporter beam. And then she wasn't on the escape pod anymore; she was in what appeared to be a transporter room on a dark ship, perhaps belonging to one of their attackers.

 _They'll find my wand._ Panic pulsing through her, she flicked her wand back into her reflex holster, and, as the crowd around and in front of her began to lessen, she frantically scooted the holster up her arm. She only just managed to get it over her elbow when a gray, scaly face loomed up in front of her, shoving officers out of the transporter.

That moment of terror would stay with her for the rest of her life; the first time she ever saw a jem'hadar. And when she learned what these reptilian warriors were called, she would never forget the name.

She was shoved out into the open, and another lizard-man took hold of her wrist, forcefully jerking her forwards. The next two lizard men did an extensive pat-down, but somehow managed to miss the bulge in her sleeve. She barely managed to register this, however. In fact, she could barely make sense of anything at all.

It appeared that they were not the only pod of officers to be taken captive. There were at least fifty other Starfleet officers in this room, and who knows how many more if there was another transporter room. In this room, there were only two non-lizard people who looked like they weren't captives. At first she thought they were human, until she noticed the odd ear design.

One of them was a boney-faced man with black hair, and he looked as if he had eaten something sour. Next to him was a younger man, perhaps around her age, who looked much better than his companion, with red hair that stuck out in a way that reminded her of Julian a bit.

She glared at them as she was brought past with her hands on her head.

"This is just an example of what you'll be doing, Avon. It's much harder when you have a specific target, but this is just an exercise of opportunity. We won't keep most of them." The black-haired man said as she passed. The ginger eyed her nervously, and his eyes darted to her sleeve before going to the ground again.

 _He knows._ She felt her stomach churn as she digested what the older man had said. _They're going to kill a lot of these people. Like we're marbles they can pick and choose from._

However, for some strange reason, the ginger - _Avon?_ \- didn't speak up, only casting her one more sideways glance as she was led out the doorway. Perhaps he hadn't noticed her sleeve after all.

She and the rest of the men and women from her escape pod were escorted down several bleak hallways. There were no windows on this ship, and few doors to other rooms as well. Either these lizard men and their commanders never slept, or whoever had built this ship was not very bright.

Soon, they came to a split way. Ahead of her, another group of Starfleet captives appeared to be getting sorted. Another pair of men with strange ears stood at the wall. The one with gray-streaked brown hair stopped the line, and had one of the lizard men take an officer down the other hallway. Lizza leaned out of the line a bit more to get a better view as her heart leapt into her throat. It was Captain Vice!

She was shoved back into position as the line started moving again. _When I get free, I'm going to kill every stink'n lizard on this forsaken ship._ The lizard that pinned her wrists together held tight, however, and she couldn't think of any way to slip out of his grip. The line kept moving, stopping only once more for some unknown reason. When it came to be her time to be sorted, she could now see where the majority of her fellow Starfleet officers were being taken to. _It's an airlock. They're shooting them out of an airlock._ Lizza felt like she might vomit. What kind of sick people where these guys. _I'm going to die today._

She could see Marina in the group that was waiting for their death. _NO!_ She struggled against the lizard-man's grip, and he gave her a sharp jab in the side, squeezing her wrists harder. The young host was crying, and didn't see Lizza as the graying man inspected her. He gave her a push on the shoulder, and another lizard man came to lead her away. She cast one last look back at Marina, as the trill lifted her head and seamed to catch sight of them before they rounded the corner. _She was newly joined. Now she dies, along with four other lifetimes of memories._

It turned out that the second hallway led to another airlock. Only unlike the first, this one had another ship attached to it, with a blond, sour-looking woman waiting at the threshold, her arms crossed and her foot tapping the floor as if she had better places to be. She had the same, weird ears as the others she had seen; only hers were adorned with earrings that looked like they might be made of rubies.

Lizza was shoved through the entryway and pushed onto the floor, where six other Starfleet officers, including Vice, were already waiting. The door of the shuttle closed as the woman entered, and she felt the floor vibrate as the power started. A lizard man came and put cuffs on her wrists like those on her companions.

Through the dimly-lit darkness, she saw her wristwatch. _It's been ten minutes since I finished eating waffles, eggs, and bacon for breakfast._

* * *

 **I made line breaks work now! ^^**

 **So, tell me what you think of this new chapter, in comparison to the old version? Better? I definitely think so. Keep your hats on, cuz it may not seem like it now, but this fic is going places! I can feel it!**

 **In the meantime, go check out my Destiny one-shot, The Final Charge, and go check out Jayfeattheris Awesome's new Destiny fic, Fever. It's super funny, with a dark background noise of mystery and suspense. The characters are great, and it is excellent for those of us who enjoy watching Prince Uldren suffer.**

 **Gosh, he was a jerk. (i recommend chapter four; sweet, possibly mentally unstable revenge)**

 **L-*OH MY GOSH IT IS WONDEROUS TO BE BACK! I felt like I might die if I had to stay on that flashdrive any longer!***

 **J-*You? I think Caimo's going to wet himself if we don't reach his chapter soon."**

 **A-*Really, guys? You think you have it bad; I've reverted to my previous state as a villain. Lizza hates me at this point in the story!**

 **G-*Can we just hurry up and get to Oswin's part? I can't take not teasing Julian anymore.***

 **Very mature, Garak; very mature.**

 **Anyone want to give a line to initiate the next conversation these guys have? Anything you want them to talk about in particular? By the way, Lizza and Avon's reaction to the Puppy-Monkey-Baby commercial is up on that last post of the old version as well.**

 **Read and REVEIW!**

 **A-*Please?**makes puppy eyes***


	3. The Dominion

~ **Earth Year- August 12th, 2370 ~**

 **6.4 Star-Date Years Until Expatriation event...**

The group that had captured them, and killed off hundreds of the people she had lived with and grown close too, was called the Dominion. The human-looking people with the odd ears were, aparently, called vorta, and their lizard-men solders were called the jem'hadar.

They had not been told any of this. No, they had had to learn it, from many beatings and threatening glares they earned if they called them anything different(Lizza had broken her "clean mouth" policy when it came to this; she called the vorta a _very_ rude name, regardless of his threats). It had been a year of torture, a year of broken trust, and a year of bloodied bodies for all seven of them.

But soon it would all change. Hopefully. Because today, a new vorta was taking over.

The new vorta wouldn't know that Teirna Palamas was a great hacker. He wouldn't know that Roxanne could lie through her teeth and still look innocent. He wouldn't know that Vice was the one to watch out for, that Perry tended to start brawls in the mess hall, or that Ricky had memorized the placement of every nut and bolt in this prison. He also would be _completely_ unaware that Tom 'Jam' Cortez could make a peanut explode with the force of a fazer blast.

And most of all, he wouldn't expect them to be planning an escape, whereas the old vorta knew exactly who the most suspicious people in the compound were. As she lay staring at the ceiling, she wondered yet again about the patronus she had sent before being captured. She didn't even know if it would be smart enough to use the wormhole, or if it could even use the wormhole to begin with. Heck, if it hadn't dissipated already, would _anybody_ even be able to hear what it was saying? She couldn't even remember the exact words she had given as a message.

"Lizza! He's here!" Perry shouted as he ran into the room, short, thin-faced, with sandy blond hair that was tied back in a mullet(he kept insisting it was cool). Everyone else stirred in their beds, lifting their heads groggily. The barracks where they slept were plain gray, no windows(as every structure of the Dominion seemed to have), with a row of twelve beds on either side. There were others who slept in here, of course; but the seven of them always waited until they were gone to do their planning.

As much as it pain them all, it wouldn't do to have twelve+ people knowing about their escape plan. It was bad enough that River had found out; on her first day at the prison, too.

Vice ripped the thin, grainy blankets off from over himself, bolting upright. Everyone else in the room did the same, standing at attention. Captain Vice was a formidable-looking man, middle-aged, with a somewhat charming silver tint to his blond hair, which was cut roughly in military fashion; roughly, for lack of a proper razor.

"At ease." The Captain told them. They relaxed.

"When should we begin, miss Bashir?" he asked Lizza. It felt strange to be giving orders to her Captain; even if she _was_ the mastermind behind half the plan.

"I say we set up shop as soon as the old guy is gone. Jam's got all the charges ready." She said, nodding to the black pyrotechnics expert. Jam was a monster of a man, towering over all of them, a misshapen beard and thatch of curly black hair having grown on his head and face after his last, great, terrible attempt to shave the facial hair off. He, as he had said, usually had someone do his hair for him.

"All you have to do is say the word, and it all goes 'boom'." He told them.

"And I've got the security network taken care of." Palamas added." Just get me to the ship, and I can hack into it."

Their plan was to steal a Dominion ship. First, Jam would set off the explosive charges he had planted in the vents with help from Ricky. Roxanne would tell the new vorta that several prisoners were rebelling in the west wing, where the explosives had been planted. After that, the plan relied heavily on Lizza, Vice, and Palamas.

Lizza would apparate in front of the ship, Palamas would hack the security with the makeshift sonic probe she had made, and then it would be up to Lizza and Professor Song to clear the ship of jem'hadar using her animagus form and whatever powerful curses she could think of. Then, she would disapparate and retrieve Jam, Ricky, and Roxanne. Vice, who had gotten schematics of the basic jem'hadar attack vessel thanks to Palamas, would be the one to drive the cursed ship away.

They hoped it would be smooth sailing from there on out, but they didn't even know where in the Gamma Quadrant they were, so it could take a while to get their bearings and find the wormhole. The location of the camp compared to the wormhole was the one bit of information that had eluded Palamas's prying fingers.

"Well. Let's get set up, and bide our time. Let's not rush it, let's not be too slow. If we fail, the folks back home won't have a clue about the Dominion until it's too late." Vice said.

"How do we know the Dominion hasn't made a move on the Alpha Quadrant yet?" Roxanne questioned, her curly black hair bouncing as she tipped her head to one side. She was, by all accounts, the most beautiful member of their little "team". Her form was sleek and smooth, and her face just as well, her shoulder-length hair the image of perfection.

Usually.

Her old uniform hung off her pretty frame, there was a certain sunkenness to her facial features, and her hair was oily and messy from the several, showerless months they had spent here. Everyone in the prison looked like she did, everyone in this room, everyone under the control of the Dominion.

"I think they made their first move a long time ago, sweetie." River said from her place near the doorway. River Song hadn't been here long, but had agreed to help Lizza clear out the jem'hadar ship. She looked a bit like Roxanne, or rather, a blond version of her. She had bouncy, curly blond hair that bushed out down to her shoulders, and stood with a certain mood of superiority stance.

Lizza had been thrilled to meet her(though she still felt guilty over this; nobody deserved to be in this place), River's British lilt sounding like music to her ears. The Archeologist had been captured while investigating some ruins on a planet near what she called the "Omarion Nebula".

"Well. We've waited a year for an opportunity like this. We might not get a second chance. So let's make it count." Lizza said. _So I can see my brother again. So that everything will be right with the world._

Most likely, Julian thought she was dead. If not, then maybe a year of search efforts -and all of the money funding it- was about to be flushed down the toilet. Either way, people would have their eyes popping out of their head when she and the others returned home with an enemy ship as a prize.

As the others started preparing themselves nervously, Lizza found herself adrift in her own mind. She was thinking about Julian, about Ethan, about her parents. About the days when she had dreamed and dreamed and dreamed about being a witch, about going on adventures and saving worlds and fighting dark wizards and being a hero. She snorted out loud.

 _Some adventure I sure got._ Turned out, being a witch wasn't what it was all cracked up to be. She could so easily remember her jealousy the day Julian went to Hogwarts for the first time...

 _People of all sorts crowded Kings Cross Station. Many were human, some were alien. But today, most were witches or wizards. Since the wizarding world had come out of hiding, the "secret" path to Platform 9 ¾ had been made much more accessible, and it was much easier to get in and out of the passage without worrying about running into someone on the other side._

 _Lizza Bashir was only 6, and to her, the place was unbelievable. The amount of jealousy inside of her was unbelievable as well. He big brother was going to be a wizard when he grew up, and she would probably be stuck doing some boring muggle job. Because what were the chances of a muggle family having both their only children magic? None._

 _"_ _But_ why _can't I go? Just for a visit?" she whined as her father led her along. Julian was on her other side, pushing a trolley with several suitcases and a tawny-feathered Screech Owl._

 _"_ _Only magic people are allowed there, Lizza. I've told you a million times!" he told her. They had been having this argument the whole shuttle ride, and neither brother nor sister noticed the tired look on their father's face._

 _"_ _Well, how do you get magic, then?" she pleaded._

 _"_ _You don't '_ get _'_ _magic. You're born with it."_

 _"_ _How do_ you _know? For all you know, you got it from your you-know-what!" She cried._

 _"_ _Not here! Not in public!" their father hissed, pulling his daughter closer as she groaned dramatically and dragged her feet along the ground._

"You." A voice snapped her out of her reverie. It was the vorta. The old one. And he had several jem'hadar with him. And seemed to be addressing her. He stood in the entrance to the barracks, glaring down at them all with a glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

"What?" she spat defiantly, standing up and crossing her arms.

"Good news, human; you're being transferred. A vorta has just gained a higher authority, and he needs some prisoners to get started with." The vorta sneered, the glint of triumph growing brighter. His gaze swept over them all as Lizza processed this information. _T_ _ransferred? But... the plan... how... why?_

 _They must have found out about the plan._ The words burned, bright and terrifying in her mind. How they knew, or how much they knew, she didn't know. But they must of known something, otherwise this wouldn't be happening.

It was too much of a convenience.

Palamas shot to her feet, striding up to the vorta and shaking Vice's hand off her shoulder when he tried to stop her.

"Why her?" Palamas questioned daringly, expression thunderous, getting up in his face." Why not me?"

The vorta looked at her bemusedly before flicking his wrist. One of the jem'hadar rushed forwards, stabbing his knife into Palamas's neck. Lizza froze, feeling like some kind of void had opened up, yawning below her to try to suck her in. The scene that was unfolding in front of her... it couldn't be happening. It just couldn't.

But it was, and all she could do was stare, shell-shocked, as Palamas fell backwards, gurgling, clutching at the wound in her throat as blood bubbled out of it, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

"No!" River screeched, darting in to catch the falling engineer. She clasped her hand over the wound in vain, and Lizza felt new rage rise up inside of her as Palamas's final breath rattled through the air.

"She was only twenty one!" River yelled at the vorta, voice quaking with enough venom to kill a million targs. Jam held back a thrashing Perry, who was screaming insults, while Roxanne gripped her hair as she stared, horrified at the dead Asian, as Rickey stared at nothing, and Vice fixed the Dominion lackeys with a glare that should have melted steel and frozen wine, veins in his neck pulsing.

"It's no matter. She would have died anyway. There is no escape." The vorta said matter-of-factly.

He turned to Lizza. _The plan is dead. It died with Palamas. There's no way onto that ship without her. She was the only one who knew how to use a sonic probe._ Fresh grief clawed its way into her heart. Palamas had been a dear friend for over a year now. They had had so much in common, both with wizarding big brothers and architects as dads.

"Time to go, now, _prisoner_." he spat out the last word, cruel mirth in his eyes, as if he took joy in watching them suffer the death of Palamas and reminding them of their status as captives. She felt the rage that boiled inside her harden and cool to pure defiance.

She would _not_ submit to this vorta. She would _not_ let Palamas die in vein. She would _not_ bow to the dominion or their cruel rules, she would _not_ stand and take the whip without lashing back anymore.

"No." all the _power_ she felt in that one word, every ounce of hate she held for the Dominion was held within it.

"Grab her." The vorta ordered coldly, eyes darkening with mercilessness. _Not without a fight!_

She punched the first jem'hadar in the gut as hard as she could, and slammed her fist into the back of his neck as he doubled over. The action hurt her hand; so much so, she feared she might have broken something, but she brought her elbow back into the chest of another jem'hadar non-the-less, hitting him with all the power she could muster and letting out a sharp cry of pain as her funny bone smarted painfully at the hit.

Regardless, and putting the pain aside with a clenched jaw, she punched him up the jaw, and he doubled over just like the first one. Pushing his head down and bringing her knee up in one, swift movement, she hear several something go _crack_ in his chest, and caught a glimpse of Rickey, Perry, and Roxanne being pinned to the floor by jem'hadar while Vice, Jam and River tried to pull them free, Before a sharp agony burst through her skull, and everything went black.

* * *

 **erm...I'm not even going to pretend that it was okay to wait a month before doing this. I've really just been going through a tough time recently, with finals and all that coming up. And...OH MY GOSH THE AGENTS OF SHIELD FINALE! I was getting over a nasty head cols when I watched it, and I cried so much, I gave myself a rebound. And I couldn't even WATCH the NCIS finale completely; that has to be the TRIPPIEST episode I have ever SEEN!**

 **The moment "THAT" door opened, I was all like; "Okay, this is like something they pulled form the NCIS fanfiction archives."**

 ***Sigh*I guess I was a little disappointed, that's all. Still... I cried when they killed (redacted).**

 **Guest: YAY! Thanks!**

 **For those of you who are wondering, I MIGHT, and that is a very large MIGHT, have another update before the end of the year. And, if you're looking for some more DS9 crossovers to kill some time with, Go check out _All the Strange, Strange Creatures_ , by Jayfeattheris Awesome!^^ It's a crossover with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., more of a bit of a side project at this point, since she's finally finished _Fever_ , and is now moving on to the next part of that adventure.**

 **For those of you who didn't read the last authors note, or you just skipped to this chapter and haven't re-read in a while, _Fever_ is Jayfeattheris Awesome's AWESOME destiny fic, the beginning of a series now dubbed "The Dysfunctional Fireteam AU." _Fever_ is focused mostly on Prince Uldren, and the many trials of suffering through a mission whilst partnered with a couple of VERY immature Guardians.^^**

 **I promise you, if you play Destiny, you will LOVE this fic. She touching up some of the early chapters right now, I think(we were both kind of Destiny noobs when she started writing it, LoL), but so far, the series has offered both laughs and feels about...as is VERY well noticed by ONE particular reviewer. ;)**

 **L-*Wow! I'm a butt-kicker in this chapter!***

 **Yes, Lizza; yes, you are.**

 **L-*How many more butts do I get to kick?***

 **Many.**

 **L-*:3***

 **Read and REVIEW! I can't take it anymore!**


	4. Avon

It wasn't so much a dream as it was a memory.

 _Lizza screeched with excitement as she saw what the Barn Owl had been carrying. The bird had evidently flown in through her window as she was sleeping, and she had woken when it nipped her ear to get her attention. It had dropped a thick envelope on her bed covers, with a wax seal that she recognized from five long years of her brother getting such letters; it was a letter from Hogwarts, and it was addressed to_ her _._

 _A bewildered Julian burst into her room in his nightclothes, his tennis racket in one hand, poised to swing. Lizza jumped out of her covers, jumping on the bed excitedly as the owl sat on her bedpost with a bored expression, as if it had seen this_ so _many times._

 _"_ _I got a letter! I got a letter! I got a letter! I got a letter!" she sang, her black hair waving wildly as she jumped up and down and all over the place._

 _"_ _You got a_ WHAT _!" Julian exclaimed, dropping his tennis racket. Their parents were off on a business trip, with the family hippogriff, Sky(their parents had_ really _taken a liking to hippogriffs during Julian's second year), leaving their only son in charge of his little sister._

 _Lizza gave a final jump, landing on her bum on the edge of the bed in a violent end to her initial excited outburst. She held out the thick parchment envelope._

 _"_ _See? 'Elizabeth Stella Bashir, Thames Way, Building 106, The Second Upstairs Bedroom' ! That's me, Julian!" she told him excitedly, pointing at the letters on the envelope._

 _Her brother came up and sat next to her, and she handed him the letter. She had never opened a_ _wax-sealed envelope before; what if she opened it the wrong way?_

 _"_ _Elizabeth Stella Bashir, we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._ _Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._ _Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31st. Yours sincerely, Professor Kallik Carman." He read, eyes lighting up happily."You know what this means, Lizza? We're going to get to go to school together!"_

Something or someone poked her in the shoulder sharply. She wanted cheese. This was weird, because Lizza hated cheese very much. This hatred was further confused by the fact that nothing compared to a good cheddar stick. Okay, she supposed that cheese was pretty good in _very_ low doses, but anything beyond that, and she would vomit. Something poked her shoulder again.

She opened her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavy and crusted. Her head was pounding, and it felt like she had been dragged through the wormhole from the back of a runabout. She sat up, blinking away the spots that danced in front of her eyes. She looked at whoever had been poking her, any nearly leapt out of her skin in surprise.

It was a vorta. More specifically, the same ginger-haired one that she had seen the day she was captured. She was sure it was him, as she remembered every moment of that day with great detail. The only thing she couldn't remember was what the other vorta had called him, because to be honest, she hadn't really cared. He held up her wand, which was likely the thing he had been poking her with.

"What's this?" he inquired, hazel eyes glinting not with malice, but curiosity. His voice wasn't cold or angry like that of most vorta she had encountered. Instead it was soft, quiet, and intelligent rather than lace with the 'I'm superior to you in every way' haughtiness. _He killed them._

Her vision went red. This was one of the vorta that had killed Marina. And Ervine, and Cassandra, and all the others as well. He was the reason Palamas was dead.

"It's mine, and it's none of your business." She snapped. He flinched by an infinite amount. _I hate you. I hate you. I hate you,_ so much _!_

"Yeah. But what's the purpose? It's just an old stick." He said, looking at her wand doubtfully, as if he wasn't sure if it was dangerous, but didn't want to risk giving it back to her.

"Just a stick?! That _stick_ is very important to me!" she snarled. He looked more than a little scared now. _That's right; you'd better._ It took so much willpower to stop her from blasting him to bits with a Reductor Curse, it was pysically exhausting to her.

"Okay, okay, I didn't mean anything by it." He told her, still holding out her wand. She took it, snatching rudely, and looked around at her surroundings.

She was in some sort of barrack, and there were bunk beds lining the walls. She was in one, and the ginger vorta was looking up at her.

"Do you do this to every one of your prisoners?" she asked, eye's narrowed suspiciously.

"No." he answered in a way that reminded her of Gandalf in the opening scenes of the second movie in the first _Hobbit_ film trilogy. "Swear I've seen you before though. "

"A year ago. It'll come to you." She growled. _My animagus form is showing through again._ She though bemusedly.

"…Oh… _that_." He said.

"Oh? _Oh_? _OH_?" she yelled, and he seemed to visibly shrink" you killed hundreds of people who had nothing to do with you! You shot them out of an airlock! You killed my friends, and all you have to say is 'Oh'?"

There was the sound of footfalls coming from one end of the barracks. The vorta cast one last look at her, fear in his eyes, before dashing in the opposite direction. _A vorta all alone in a barrack full of his prisoners? Yeah, you better run._ Which was why she was so surprised when she saw it was not angry prisoners that had seemed to scare the vorta off.

It was a group of jem'hadar.

* * *

Avon-1-Echo-6 _knew_ he had seen this strange young woman somewhere before. And the sense of wrongness coming from her had been familiar, too. The feeling was more odd than unpleasant, but he knew that it was dangerous all the same. As far as he could tell, the other vorta hadn't felt the same way.

But there was something off about this girl and her stick. The stick had the same wrongness feeling that the girl had, though a little stronger. Throughout their conversation, there had been a strangely animalistic way to her movements; the way she tipped her head, the way her lips curled, and the way her voice somehow took a deep, growling accent as she got angrier.

"Oh? _Oh_? _OH_? You killed hundreds of people who had nothing to do with you! You shot them out of an airlock! You killed my friends, and all you have to say is 'Oh'?" Even her yell oddly sounded like a bark.

Panic rose in him as she yelled. He hadn't meant it like that. He _wanted_ to talk to her. He just didn't want to talk about _that_ day. The day true doubt had sprouted in his mind; and it had grown bigger ever since. During that day, the younger vortas were being trained on how to capture targets from enemy vessels; drive them into the escape pods, beam them aboard, take your target… and dispose of the rest.

He was the first Avon, born of generation Echo-6. There were roughly fifty right now. Once a sufficiant percentage of one generation reached the point where they had had five clones, a new generation was commisioned. After ten clones, a vorta personality was discontinued. Generations were generally marked by hair color.

While most vorta in the front lines were the darker-haired, pale, Omega, White, Beta, and Glass generation variants. Echo, Rain, and Ozone generation varients tended to have varying shades of red hair. Echo's were more fire-colored, while Ozone's were a darker russet, with Rain's somewhere in between. All three recent generation varients, including his own, had come out with a newer line of personalities, himself being one of them, based more off the fuller skin and facial structures of a few of their new Alpha Quadrant guests.

That was only one of the reasons _that_ day had desterbed him so much. The humans...their faces had looked so much like his, more so than the other vorta.

The moment the first Starfleet personnel were beamed aboard the ship, he had felt sick to his stomach. _What have we done?_ He had kept asking himself when he made the mistake of putting a viewing lens on. All around them, he had seen the bodies of dead officers that had been ejected from the airlock. He had felt ashamed of aiding in such actions during the whole operation.

He had thought the feelings of doubt would subside when he met a founder for the first time. He had been magnificently unimpressed by his so-called gods. They had been damageable, flawed, and, in his opinion, terrible control freaks. A meeting with a founder had only reinforced his doubt in the Dominion's ways.

And then there with this girl, who had briefly caught his attention during the operation he was ashamed of. She intrigued yet frightened him. He had a feeling that she could be his chance at redemption, and, quite possibly, escape from this nightmarish corner of the galaxy.

The sound of jem'hadar boots thumping on the ground signaled the arrival of several guards, who had most likely been attracted by this woman's yelling. His stomach flip-flopped in his gut; if he was seen trying to have a casual conversation with a prisoner, they would know he was a defective clone. _The first Avon, a defective. So much for their new advance science._ He thought wryly.

He cast her one last glance, before running. _I can try again later. I hope._ He nearly ran into one of the other prisoners, from a race known as the bajorans, if he remembered correctly, as he came out of the barracks and into the main corridor of the encampment. He halted as he saw one of the jem'hadar turning the corner, forcing himself not to pant, and trying to look like he _wasn't_ guilty. _But I am guilty. I helped kill those people. I wasn't brave enough to speak for them. I couldn't ask if it was the right thing to do. I couldn't pluck up the courage to do the right thing._

The jem'hadar vaguely acknowledged him as they passed, and he relaxed as they left. He was going to do the right thing from now on, starting with this Starfleet woman.

"My name's Avon." He said the next day to the Starfleet officer. She was laying in her bunk, her back turned towards him this time. His greeting yielded no response. He wasn't even sure if she was awake. He decided to try and make right. He had been planning on what to say in order to make her trust him all night.

"I did something wrong. I've regretted it ever since. Truth is, I'm defective. I should have been killed a long time ago." He told her. The woman rolled over to look at him with a cautious green gaze.

"What are you playing at?" she asked, green eyes studying him like some sort of wild animal assesing a potential victim.

"Nothing. I'm telling you the truth. I don't believe in the Dominion's cause." He looked around briefly, checking for jem'hadar; his nerves felt even more frayed than usual, and he kept glancing over his shoulder for some reason." Sometimes there's a problem in the code, and vorta come out defective. They're usually disposed of. But I'm the first Avon, and a vorta line has never started out with a defect before. They probably think that it's impossible"

The woman rolled over completely. Her eyes were still narrowed, but at least he had earned her trust, even if it was just temporarily.

"I'm listening." She said suspiciously, though the background of anger, hate, and pain behind her eyes and voice didn't fade as she kept glaring at him. He felt relief pour through him, and the words practically exploded out of his mouth at warp speed 10.

This was one thing he could never do with another vorta; talk. Just talk. Reveal things that _had_ to get out before he lost his mind, and here he was revealing his defectiveness and shame to a complete stranger, a person he was holding prisoner, no less. And if felt _so_ good. And he was absolutely _terrified_ that a jem'hadar or another prisoner would walk in on their conversation, but nothing happened.

By the end, he seemed to have gained a sort of trust with this strange woman. But she still seemed to think he might be playing her, and at the mention of escaping, this look only increased.

"Hey, If you want out of here, send the rescue ship my way! " he tried to joke nervously, becoming more and more paranoid that someone would be listening, more and more nervous that she still didn't believe him.

"You would help me escape?" she asked, head tipping to the side animalisticly, looking thoughtful, and suspicious. He was getting some mixed signals here; sometimes it seemed like she trusted him; but that glint in her eyes... that growl in her voice...

"I'd help everyone on this stupid rock escape if I could!" a loud noise made him jump, and his constant fear of discovery won him over."I should go."

As he hurried away, however, her voice called him back again. He halted at the east entrance to the barracks, looking back at her. She was leaning over the side of her bunk to look at him.

"My name's Lizza. Don't call me 'Elizabeth', 'Liz', 'Lizzy', 'Ellie', or 'Beth', because 'Beth' sounds just plain stupid." She told him, a canine grin on her face. He found himself smiling back, despite there was a look behind the smile that he didn't like.

And the first step he took out that door, he swore it felt like a first step towards freedom.

* * *

 **Yay! Avon!**

 **Look, guys, those few of you who read this... PLEASE DON'T KILL ME FOR BEING SO LATE! I got hooked to this game called Destiny, and now I really want to write a fic for it, in honor of the new DLC coming out, Rise Of Iron!**

 **L- You seriously kind of need a break from that game; you've been playing it all summer...**

 **NEVER!**

 **L-*cringes* Please don't hurt me!**

 **Until the next time, few and faithful readers!**

 **Read and REVIEW!**


	5. Oswin

Odo wasn't sure what he was seeing. One moment, he was heading in to write Quark up for saftey violations, the next, he walks into the bar to see _this_.

The station's cheif of medical staff, Dr. Bashir, was sitting at the bar, a cup in one hand, pale as a ghost and as still as a rock. He looked horrified. But Cheif O'Brian and Dax didn't. In fact, they appeared to be highly amused.

Shaking himself out of his suprise, Odo approached them, noticing at once the icecube in the Cheif's hand.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you; you might make him hurt himself." the security cheif warned. O'Brian dropped the icecube, looking disapointed.

"Exactly what happened to him?" He asked.

"Well, you see that girl over there? The science officer with the black hair? I dared Julian to ask her out." Dax explained, looking peevish.

"And?" Odo pressed. Why would asking a girl out result in this odd behavior? He would never understand the complexities of the humanoid desire for companionship.

"Annnnnnndd..." Dax began, looking amused but embarassed at the same time." It turns out she's an empipathic psychic. And a squib... a seer squib. He walked up to her, and then she said she had had a vision of him asking her out, and that she would go, and _then_ she pinned me for the dare and said that everything would be okay on their date."

"A squib? Seer? Empipathic?" Odo tried to wrap his head around everything that Dax had told him, in one breath, no less. He knew what empathy meant, but empipathic?

"A squib is like the opposite of a muggle-born wizard; they have magic parents,but they struggle with magic themselves. Seers, well, _true_ seers can predict the futer, tell prophecies, have visions, that sort of thing." O'brian explained from Julian's other side.

"And an empipathic phsychic is someone who can _literally_ sense other people's emotions. it's not like how you can look at someone and tell how they're feeling by their expression, she can _feel_ everything you're feeling. And that, combined with the fact she's a squib seer... It's not really that supriseing that she has visions." Dax finished.

Odo shook his head, still not was the big deal? Squib seer? Wouldn't that mean that she has no seer abilities? Wouldn't it? And why would this cause Julians 'frozen' state?

"Hey!" Quark's voice clawed the air. "You gonna do something, or just sit there?" The ferengi seemed to be adressing the paralized doctor.

"He just got told by a cute girl that she had a vision of him and would go on a date with him, give him some slack, Quark!" Dax gasped.

"As much as I hate to admit it, he's probably right, Dax; you should get him out of here so he can 'recover' from his encounter. How is he supposed to date that girl if he can't move?" Odo told her reluctantly, inwardly hissing at the smug look that crossed the bartender's face.

"Fine." Dax huffed." A little help, Cheif?"

Julian moved stiffly, still looking like a ghost. As they neared the door, Odo remembered something.

"Exactly what's her name?" he called.

"She said it was Oswin. Oswin Clara Oswald, I think. I think she's with the crew of the _Destiny_ , here on shore leave." O'Brian answered over his shoulder.

"Com'on, Romeo." Dax told the doctor as the left.

Odo turned towards the tables, spotting again the dark-haired girl that Dax had pointed out. _Oswin, huh?Oswin the phsychic. I'll have to do a background check on her later._ Any psychic, empipathic or not, was a concern on this station.

"Well, now that _he's_ done freaking my costumers out..." Quark started to walk away from his place behind the bar.

"Oh, no you don't! I have words for you on _several_ saftey violations, including but not limiting to..."

* * *

 **Sorry, guys; I tried. I tried to make this chapter better, I really did. But it was so dull, my brain refused to linger on it for more than five seconds. So here we are; this is exactly the same as it was in the original, but-**

 **OHMYGOSH! SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY HYPED FOR THIS FIC! Sovietshadow, you are me hero. I internally screamed when I saw the guest review box full of reviews for Twelve Days of RoI, but you were using them to beg for Siblings content. That has never happened to me before. I'm glad that someone, at least, likes this series!**

 **And I see MaybeALittleBroken has arrived. I wonder how crazy this will get if she sticks around...**

 **It seems my temporary return to the Destiny Fandom has earned me some new followers! ^^**

 **...Oh dear. This means I have to spend less time playing Destiny and more time writing, now, doesn't it? Well, I guess I have a few chapters until I have to start worrying about that, though! I re-wrote a bunch over the summer; I just... REFUSED to work with this chapter. I literally went off to my own little world whenever I started to type, so I just left it as is before my brain broke and shadow spammed my reviews. As cool as that would be, to have such a thirsty reader desperate for attention, I suppose I shouldn't be cruel.**

 **Just so those of you who read this know... I DO spend a lot of time playing Destiny, doing homework, and beta reading Jayfeattheris Awesome's stuff(her latest 15 Seconds chapter; cried so much! Andal, NOOOOOOOO!). Basically... I am a very boring fanfiction author. You know it used to be the other way around; Jay was the boring one. Then Silverhawk crashed her way into our lives and now I use the word 'blazing' for just about everything.**

 **But THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE REVIED! I hope to keep your attention, and maybe, just maybe, my fiery passion for this fic may be rekindled in full. It'll probably come after my next star trek or harry potter binge. That's why Jay and I haven't watched the new AoS season episodes yet; we don't want to be distracted from our focus fandoms.**

 **Ironic we have Warriors names, but haven't written any Warriors stuff. I might just have to amend that.**

 **Anyway, as usual, read and REVIEW!**

 **/)^^(\**


	6. Bad Wingmen And Phantom Wolves

Julian didn't know what to do. He was hopelessly in love with Oswin, and he had no idea what to do. What did one do when they fell in love with an empathic psychic who had occasional visions of the future? _Panic_. That's what he was doing. He was panicking over a dinner date.

Both Dax and Chief O'Brian had tried to give him advice. Garak and Odo knew absolutely nothing about dating, so it was pointless to take advice from noobs. Commander Sisko had only managed to make him even more terrified, telling him that whatever he did, don't say "you have beautiful eyes." Apparently, it was so cliché, it was a date-doomer.

So here he was, about to date a cute psychic who he was currently scared of. He sat as stiff as cardboard, and he knew he was going to feel the aftermath in his back the next morning. And Garak was NOT helping.

"So this is what an expert dater looks like?"

"Shut up, Garak."

"Oh, I'm just here to observe. Take notes, so to speak."

"Go. Away."

"You said I knew nothing about women. I'm here to learn from the master."

Julian let out a low moan. This was revenge for calling him a 'dating noob'. _This is what I get for_ that _comment!_ The tailor was obviously enjoying torturing his friend. The first time torturing a love-struck friend was always the best, Julian knew from personal experience. It was just a little weird to be on the receiving end this time.

Of course, he had one advantage none of his past victims had had; Garak didn't know Oswin was a psychic. One mention of her ability, and hopefully the former spy would run for the hills under the assumption that Oswin would be able to see into his memories. No need to bring up the fact that she was an empath, only capable of feeling other's emotion rather than their thoughts, but hopefully the cardassian wouldn't ask for specifics.

"So, what does this mystical woman do for a living?" Garak asked with a bemused smirk.

"She's in Starfleet. A science officer." He answered through grit teeth. His jaw would break if this continued any longer.

"What kind of science?" he pressed.

"Neurology. She's a psychic, Garak, what did you expect? A botanist?" annnnnnnnnd… the winning blow had struck.

"What do you mean? You never mentioned she was a psychic." his smirk was replaced by a frown.

"Well, Dax knew, and usually everyone knows things within the hour if the gossip queen gets wind of something." Julian said, relief running down his spine. He didn't think he would survive the night if he was stuck with Garak watching his dating experience like a hawk.

Then he saw the short, black-haired empath near the doorway. _Time for the coup de gras._

"Hi, Oswin! Over here!" he called, standing and waving his arm to get her attention. Garak seemed to pale a bit, and turned to leave as soon as Oswin spotted them.

"You'll never make it in the world as a wing-man, Garak!" he called after the tailor as he made a hasty retreat. Oh, he was _never_ going to let him forget this after he revealed Oswin's specific psychic skill set.

And then Oswin sat herself down in the chair opposite from him, and true terror seized him again. He hair was done up in a fancy rose braid bun, and her mint blue dress glittered like starlight. _Someone… help…_

The best he could manage was a stupid grin. She gave him that teasing, knowing look, with that same smile she had sent him hours earlier, when she had said she had had a vision of him asking her out. _That look…_ shock slammed him as he realized who it reminded him of. _That's the same look Lizza would give me whenever she figured out one of my little secrets._ Almost exactly the same. _Did she see Lizza in my head? In a vision? Is it just my mind playing tricks on me?_

Oswin must have sensed the change in his mood, and the look was wiped from her face in a heartbeat. _Oh, great, I've ruined it._ He wailed internally. _Why does_ everything _have to remind me of my little sister?_

"Something bad happened, didn't it?" she said slowly."Who did you lose?"

"My sister. My little sister." He told her. The words clawed his throat just as they always did whenever he had to explain what happened. _This... is not the best way to start a date._

"I've got one of those. And an older one. Between one clamoring for my attention, and the other kicking me out of her room every ten seconds, my childhood was a bit of what you might call 'hectic'." Oswin said with a slightly struggled smile, obviously trying to turn the topic. He returned it, for some reason.

"Middle child. Ouch. And you're psychic." He stated wryly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she laughed. _Uh-oh._ The question was asked humorously, but it was still a danger zone. _GHAAA! I'M AN IDIOT!_

"I mean, were they always asking you to use your powers?" he cleared his throat, trying to banish the memories of Lizza and him playing in a snow-covered forest as children before they consumed his attention.

"No. My big sister is a witch, and my little sister is a true seer. Like you said; middle child." She snorted.

"Lizza was an Auror. She was training to become part of the Beyonding Division." He said. He remembered the chess pieces being shattered as they played for the last time.

"Was she pretty?" eyes as green as summer leaves, her long, dark hair fluttering in the wind, her smooth, pale skin stretched over her excited facial features as they stuck their heads out of a window on the Hogwarts Express. The last time he had ever ridden the Hogwarts Express.

"Yeah." Didn't do her justice. Had Lizza ever sought out a boyfriend, she would likely have been married before him.

Oswin placed a hand on his wrist, staring into his eyes with her impossibly blue ones. He tried to keep himself from flinching. Because, for a split second that lasted a million years, a thousand lives seemed to pass flash through the blue depths.

"She may be gone. But she's never really left you. Pity the living, not the dead, Julian ." she said.

 _She's right._ A small voice inside him said. _I can't stop living in a past I can't go back to. There is not a magic time machine I can use to set things right. I have to do my job; I have to heal people. Living people, not dead ones._

And he felt a little better.

* * *

Personally, Julian thought the night had been a rather successful venture. Part of him couldn't wait to rub his success in Garak's smug face, but a larger part of him just couldn't wait to get to sleep. Him and Oswin had been up waaaaay past the recommended bedtime for average human adults. When the klingon restaurant had finally closed, they had moved to Quark's bar and spent several hours exchanging the wildest stories. Julian was pretty sure he had made most of his up, as Oswin had admitted to making up hers during an arousing but embarrassing game of truth or dare.

He had ended up drinking a teaspoon full of the hottest hot sauce in the quadrant, and Oswin had confessed to spiking his drink with food coloring… which had turned out to be a dirty little lie.

He collapsed face first onto his couch with a groan. He didn't want to bother with getting dressed. He would just fall asleep right here, right now. And he did.

 _He was floating in the vastness of space. Starlight danced everywhere he looked, and clouds of vibrantly colored nebulas made it seem like this was the most beautiful place in the galaxy. But he had had this dream before. He knew what was about to happen. Except he didn't know that this time, the dream would be different._

 _"Was she pretty?" Oswin's voice rang._

 _"Yeah." His own voice echoed back, slight rasp of grief tight in his voice._

 _He spun in the vacuum of space, expecting to see what he always saw; the body of Lizza floating by. But this time, it wasn't just Lizza. This time, there were several others, including Oswin. Oswin, Dax, Chief O'Brian, the rest of his friends and people he saw on a day-to-day basis. Jake Sisko's eyes were frozen open in terror, and his father drifted close by with a look of horror etched onto his face._

 _"You made a mistake, brother." Lizza said. She was standing beside him now, her hands held behind her back in a Dax-ish manner. She leaned in closer to whisper in his ear."I'm still alive."_

 _"No. You died. I have to accept that."_

 _"Wake up!" She hissed harshly."Now! Wake up!"_

He jerked awake, and he would feel cold sweat on his face. But there was a white-blue light in front of him, and smoky wisps of it bushed his face, sending feelings of warmth along him. And then he realized what it was, and he rolled off his couch to crouch in front of the patronus that seemed to have landed in his living room.

"Lizza?" he whispered shakily. It was her patronus, no doubt. There was no mistaking the bent tail and pricked ears. The beast was panting as if it had run a long way. _Did it come here all the way from the place the_ Centurion _was destroyed?_

It would definitely make sense; sub-space patronus messages were for emergency Auror distress signals, as Lizza had told him during one of her previous visits, and they had been known to take years to reach their destination. Even then, it was usually too late for the patronus caster by the time someone actually found them.

The wolf's muzzle opened, and it's jaws moved as if it were speaking, though the words were barely audible. He moved closer to hear what it was saying. And then, he heard a voice he never thought he would hear in reality again. It was silent, faded because of the long journey, but it was as strong as ever. And what she said chilled him to the bone.

"It won't end here. Beware the black ships. They are hostile." And the wolf let out a howl, dissipating into wisps of sparkling white fog that rose up into the air. He snatched at it, trying to bring it back. He hadn't heard the full message! It might have said where Lizza was!

"No!" he protested. He punched the floor with frustration, as something new fill him up and begged to be let out. He looked around desperately. He had been given a sign of hope, only to have it snatched cruelly from him. "Lizza!"

But now, he had a whole new set of problems to deal with. The patronus had come, so she wasn't dead. But she was out there, somewhere, lost in the Gamma Quadrant. Lost, and maybe even injured. The feeling that begged to be released was a fierce love that couldn't be stopped. He would find his baby sister, even if he had to look for the rest of his life.

"I'll find you, Lizza!" He whispered, tears running down his cheeks. "I promise. I'll find you..."

* * *

 **Garak is frabjous, Julian is having a mental breakdown, and yes, Oswin's powers are based off of those of the lady from that Doctor Who episode, the one who could sense the 'ghost' that was actually a time-traveler trapped in a pocket dimension.**

 **Expect slower updates. He, I say that after months of no updates whatsoever. But after Twelve Days of RoI, a few people wanted to see more Destiny stuff from me. More specifically; more stuff involving the Iron Lords. I've also started another Destiny fic, _Rising_ , which isn't a one-shot series. It's an AU where the Traveler and the Darkness never visited the Fallen. Won't be working on that one a whole lot, but meh, I got a few chapters in storage.**

 **In fact, the only non-Destiny thing i'm going to be working on this month is a companion piece Halloween special to my Mass Effect one-shot from April Fools. I'm not going to give TOO much away. But, for teasers sake... two words:**

 **Exploding Hotdogs.**

 **I'm trying to keep with the theme of trolling people with food.**

 **And my one, blessed reviewer is right; things will be interesting with her as a seer squib/empath.**

 **Well, let me know of what you thought of the ever-blazing Garak's behavior; your going to be seeing a lot of teasing from him in coming chapters. And yes, I do plan on using him quite a lot as a frequent character in the series.**

 **I'ma go binge on Destiny's Iron Banner playlist now; I think Supremacy is my one true love now. At first, I didn't play it cause I was a bit iffy about it, but now I FREAKING LOVE IT IT'S THE MOST FRABJOUS THING EVER!**

 **Read and REVIEW!**


	7. The Hunt Begins

Dax still couldn't believe what had happened. Nobody had believed Julian at first, but after several witnesses had claimed they'd seen a large, mist-made wolf bounding across the promenade and through the walls, it had become crystal clear that Lizza Bashir was alive. Pinpointing where the patronus hadn't been too difficult; there was a simple equation that could be used to figure out where a message patronus had come from, and Lizza had indeed cast her familiar from the _Centurion_ 's final resting place.

Exactly where she had gone was what worried her. An Auror lost in the Gamma Quadrant, possibly in enemy hand? It was a security risk. If whoever had captured her figured out she was a witch, they could lose whatever elements of surprise they had left. Honestly, though, everyone was more concerned with Lizza's warning than the fate of the young witch herself.

Whatever Lizza had meant by "the black ships", it obviously had to do with whomever or whatever had destroyed the _Centurion_ and her crew. As she sat at her consol in ops, Dax felt a chill go up her spine as she remembered Odo and O'Brian's discovery of the wreckage; hundreds of bodies, floating in the vacuum of space, some unidentifiable, and several other bodies had been unaccounted for, including the captain's.

She looked down at the list of people that hadn't been found among the wreckage; 57, in all. She scrolled down, and stopped when she came to Lizza's name. She tapped the file, and put it up on the large view screen.

"Alright people, here's what we knew for sure so far." Major Kira announced, coming in front of the screen and addressing the many officers that had been gathered.

"We know that at least one member of the _Centurion's_ missing crew is alive." She pointed at the screen" Auror-in-training Lizza Bashir, now MIA somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant. She was part of the IMoM's Accelerated Auror Training Program, or AATP for short. She is currently 20 years old, with a height of 5''7 and a wand made of Ebony and dragon heartstring, 11'' inches. She was an Ensign assigned to the _Centurion's_ security squad, and her Animagus Registry has her listed as being a large, black wolf with a crooked tail and gray paws. At some point during her possible capture, she sent a Patronus message to DS9: 'It will not end here.' Basically."

Dax brought up another list on the view screen.

"This is a list of all people and ships that have gone missing in the Gamma Quadrant." Kira told them. Dax put up another list alongside the first.

"This is a list of those people and ships that have disappeared or been destroyed under mysterious circumstances. " this list was considerably longer than the first.

"We don't know how many people may still be out there, but our first priority is locating what seems to be the highest power in the Gamma Quadrant; The Dominion. And for people who seem to be very important, we can't get a butt's worth of information about them or their whereabouts." The major continued angrily. Trying to get information on the Dominion had been driving her around the bend.

"Some people mention them fearfully, while others seem to worship them. They're most likely your typical corrupt communist government that's trying to control your life, while continuing the mantra of 'we know what's best for you.'" _That's cardassia in a nutshell._ Dax couldn't help but think.

"Sisko left a list of duties for me to assign to you before he left. Cheif O'Brian, you're to update the station's weapons systems, and rig all sensors so that they can pick up and filter signals comeing from the Gamma Quadrant. We need to know what's junk, what's communications, and what's distress signal." The major continued.

"Well, it could take a while to get a system like that up and running, especcially on a patchwork system like this one." the Cheif of Operations said, giving a nearby consol a kick." But I could have it up and running in a few days. As for weapons... well, wish me luck, I'll need it."

"Alright. Dax, you're to put in a request to the Intersteller Ministry of Magic for support Aurors. If we want to defend this station properly, we need an Auror Inquisition Office, whatever that is." Kira read, looking a bit confused at the orders she was reading.

"As I understand it, Auror Inquisiters organize and moniter long term wizarding expeditions into the deeper, uncharted reachs of the galaxy. They're like... just picture adventurers on steriods with magic and federal authority." Dax explianed." And wouldn't it be better if Julian contacted the IMoM? He is a wizard, after all."

"Yeah, but he's also head of medical staff, and he's personally involved in this case. At least, that's the excuse Sisko wrote down." She peered closer at the data pad." He also wrote that Bashir would have his hands full helping me to update the emergancy protocals, as well as ordering for medical shuttles to be installed in case the infermary ever goes down."

"Okay, what bout me?" Odo spoke up from the crowd, several of his deputies behind him.

"He wants you to help me and Bashir with the emergancy protocals. In short, we're all going to have lots of hour with minimal leave and no overtime pay." The bajoran finished. A few groans of distaste rose from the crowd.

"Okay, people, you heard the Major! Get to it!" Dax yelled. She couldn't help but notice that there were few medical staff present. She stopped on of the nurses as she made for the door.

"Where's Doctor Bashir?" she questioned.

"He's busy with a patient." The nurse answered, though her body movement told Dax that she was lieing.

As the nurse departed and Ops became more busy than ever before, Major Kira approached her.

"I noticed he wasn't here. What do you think he's doing?" she asked.

"No idea." Dax shrugged turning to her freind."Probably getting ready to tear the entire galaxy apart if we don't find her soon."

"Then we should probably get started before he makes a descision, then." Kira said. They went to meet Odo in Sisko's office, and Dax cast one last look at the door. Whatever happened, she knew what this felt like to the childish doctor. Except her own sibling had been dead for good, and everything was about to crazy in a way she didn't know.

* * *

 **Whew, sorry guys, I got distracted by Destiny: Rise of Iron! IT IS SO GLORIOUS! I can't wait for the Sparrow Racing League to come back; I wasn't playing back when the first one came along.**

 **Anyway, Magical Creatures and Where to Find Them came out!**

 **... in Britain. Damn it, I live in Oregon. I can't Wait till Friday though! I'm going to see it, and I'ma gonna love it!**

 **This chapter was written while watching NCIS, so sorry if it sounds like it came right from the big orange room.**

 **Read and REVIEW!**


	8. Rem Stones

The search had been on for two weeks now.

Deep Space Nine had been turned into a base of operations for a large-scale rescue mission, with Federation ships coming in and out of the system as they looked for any clues that could lead to the hundreds of MIA officers and civilians. Of course, not all of the missing people were Federation citizens, so had had to put up with romulan presence on the station until their people could be found; and they weren't the only ones. Cardassians, bajorans, klingons… there was even an apalapucian presence!

Normally, Julian would be ecstatic to be in close contact with the bivascular race; but his normal curiosity had been replaced by a raging dragon that would stop at nothing to find his sister. Even now, the possibility of her survival grew more and more remote, even if she had been alive when the patronus had come.

The Grand Ministry of Magic had also set up shop on the station…at the unfortunate inconvenience of one Garak. The tailor had been shooed out of his shop, which had quickly become a central command for at least fifty Aurors, along with other ministry personnel. Quark, too, had been forced out of his usual place of business, though to the romulans rather than the wizards.

Life as usual had come to a grinding halt as soon as Lizza's patronus had landed in Julian's living room. Everyone was trying to conduct their own search, getting under each other's feet and causing mass confusion on the radio waves. While one party tried to do a long-rage sensor sweep for magic, another would be trying to catch and analyze signals that might be used for locating the victimized ships and disabling their communications.

It was complete and total chaos.

"You know, we could try to do a quantum scan for patronus energy." Oswin suggested from his desk as he tended to the unfortunate victim of a table corner.

"I would have tried that already," Julian replied as he examined the damaged tissue," If not for all the idiots trying to do their own thing at once. All their signals would probably jam any kind of sensors we set up."

"Maybe we could ask them to… 'politely' shut up?" Garak suggested from where he was trying-and failing-to get the replicator to work.

"Never thought I would ever hear _you_ say the words 'shut up'." Julian rolled his eyes, though his stiff form betrayed the amount of stress he was under.

"Have you told Chief O'Brian about this yet?" the Cardassian asked, jerking his thumb at the disobedient machine.

"Yes, but apparently, it's happening all over the station." Bashir shrugged." I guess it must be all the prats that are sucking up all the power on the station."

"Probably." Garak looked like he might be resisting the urge to ask what a 'prat' was; he had been friends with Julian for almost two years now, but still had some trouble understanding the British terminology that the doctor sometimes used.

"Hey; broken kneecap here!" complained the doctor's newest patient loudly." Can't you chatterbox's chatter when you _aren't_ digging around inside me?"

"I am not 'digging around inside you', and your knee is _not_ broken. The worst you have is a bruise. You are perfectly capable of walking and working." Julian told the cranky Auror. _They can hunt down the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy, but one bruised knee and they wail like a child!_ He thought impatiently.

The extra thousand-or-so people on the station had given him little time to conduct his own search for Lizza; he had been dealing with hundreds of petty injuries a day for over a week now. From stubbed toes and bad bruises, to broken fingers and horrifically sore muscles, the only emergency so far had occurred when a klingon had stabbed an apalapucian for taking his place in a lunch line.

And that was when Garak had decided that it would be safer to eat in the infirmary than at his usual table. Personally, Julian couldn't blame him; the last time _he_ had eaten on the promenade, he had had to duck as a klingon threw a chair across the diner at a nearby bajoran(goodness knows why).

"You know, I thought Aurors were tougher than this; whining over a bruised knee." Oswin commented, licking a lollipop ( _where in the world did she get_ that _from?_ He mused) and echoing Julian's own thoughts.

Since the discovery had been made, the _Destiny_ had maintained a near-constant presence at the station; meaning he and Oswin had had more time together than he had thought they would. When he wasn't working or worrying about Lizza, he was with Oswin. Usually they talked about the search, mostly because he brought it up. Other times, they were getting to know each other better.

This particular use of his spare time had earned him, as expected, as fair amount of teasing from Chief O'Brian. Unexpectedly, however, was that Garak was even worse. Having been kicked out of his shop, he seemed to have made it his personal duty to tease Julian every chance he got; a childish behavior that was highly unusual for someone like Garak.

For some reason, Oswin thought it was hilarious.

"I'll have you know that I've got an old childhood injury that sometimes resurfaces in _this_ knee!" The Auror defended.

"Right. I bet you do." the wizard glared at her furiously. Julian noticed his hand twitching towards his wand.

"Oh, no you don't!" he snapped, snatching the wand out of it's holster before any spellcasting could be done.

A loud bang sounded through the air, together with what sounded like a curse word, but in a language no one in the room could understand...except Garak, apparently. The cardassian was hopping on one foot, as if he had kicked the wall. Which, he had.

"Did you just swear in klingon?" Julian aske, one eyebrow raised. Of coarse Garak would know his own language, as well as English. But klingon? That was unexpected.

"So?" the now-limping tailor shrugged.

At the same time, Julian heard another set of uneven footsteps in the entryway of the infirmary, and turned his head to see Chief O'Brian limping in. He opened his mouth to speak, but Julian cut him off.

" _Don't_ tell me. Let me guess; you kicked a replicator." he asked wryly.

"Uuuuuhhhhh..." the Chief of Operations looked around embarrassedly.

"It's okay; you aren't the only one. I yelled at the lift the other day. " Oswin told him. A beep sounded, and she stuck her lollipop( _Seriously HOW!?_ ) in her mouth as she answered her PD.

"How did she get _that_?" O'Brian asked. Julian shrugged. The Auror tapped him on the shoulder.

"Yes, yes, you can go." he handed back the wand as the wizard left at a brisk, limping pace. "Don't let the door hex you on the way out." he added under his breath.

"Oh...Oh cadet Teagan you didn't..." Oswin said slowly. She let out a heavy sigh." Alright, alright, I'll be right there. Don't you _dare_ touch anything else, I'm going to get Cheif Solvix." She closed the PD with another heavy sigh.

"What was that all about?" O'Brian asked.

"Cadet Teagan just got her hand caught in a engine panel. She moved some wires to try and get it out, but she ended up activating the _Destiny_ 's siege mode by accident. The electrical outburst took out her comm badge, nearly killed her, and now she and her boyfriend are trapped in a maintenance closet. And her hand is still stuck." Oswin explained rubbing her forehead as if the cadet in question had given her a headache.

"So... why did she call you, then?" Garak inquired.

"I'm her supervisor. Her sister is one of the missing officers, and cadets with missing family members are allowed to help with the search."

Suddenly, a deep, beeping alarm sounded throughout the station. Red lights flashed along the walls as the code red sounded. Oswin flipped her PD back open.

"Teagan, what did you pull?" she asked apprehensively. Julian thought he could hear a faint protest on the other end. Oswin lowered the PD, looking worried "It's not her. We're under attack."

"Chief, Garak, get to the back room. Oswin, unlock the emergency kits." he rushed to his desk as they, surprisingly, did as they were told.

"Wait! Listen!" O'Brian suddenly yelled. For the first time, Julian noticed how odd the alarm sounded. He furrowed his brow, confused.

"What is that?" instead of its usual blaring, the alarm was now a pattern of consecutive beeps; three short, three long, three more short, and then a brief pause before starting all over again.

"I recognize that from somewhere..." Cheif O'Brian said slowly.

"It's morse code!" Oswin gasped. Julian looked at her, astonished.

"You know morse code?" he queried. She shushed him, tipping her head to the side.

After a few repetitions of the noise, she spoke again." It's S.O.S... Someone's calling for help."

At the same time, Julian's comm badge went off. "Sisko to Bashir; report to Opps immediately."

"Looks like we're about to be busy." O'Brian commented.

"You mean _I'm_ about to be busy; you foot is broken."

"No it's not!"

" _Yes_ it _is_!"

"How do _you_ know?"

"OI! Would you both just shut up and do as you're told!?" Oswin yelled.

"Yes, mum." both men said as one. She gave them a severe look, and Garak looked like he was seriously trying not to laugh or snicker or giggle or anything.

Julian's face fell. "I'll be going now."

"Yes, you probably should." Oswin told him. He walked towards the entrance.

"Oi, stupid!" she called after him. He whirled around. Garak sniggered, and ceased as the doctor sent him a look of "shut up", though he refused to look guilty.

"Get done in time for dinner. You promised me steak, remember." she said, and Julian blushed.

"Yes, you promised her steak, Julian." Garak said.

" _You_ , shut it!" the doctor became even redder, with embarrassment or anger... or both. And with that, he turned and left for Opps.

* * *

"Major Kira, report." Sisko ordered as the odd alarm continued.

"We're getting reports of every sound system on the station, going off." she informed him, trying to cease the beeping that was coming from her console. "Wait, check that; we have reports coming in of all sound systems from here to Bajor going off!"

"By the sky!" a raptorian exclaimed, his ears pricking up with surprise.

"I agree." a black, middle-aged officer nearby said.

"How do we stop it?" Dax inquired, slamming a fist down on her console in vain.

"We don't!" Sisko looked towards the turbo lift in time to see Doctor Bashir stepping out of it.

"Doctor Bashir, what took you so long?" Sisko asked.

"What do you mean by _that_?" Kira asked at the same time as he came up to Sisko, ignoring her.

"Commander, Oswin says it's Morse code. It's an S.O.S." he told him, eyes unreadable and jaw clenched.

"Dax, is here any way to tell who it is?" Sisko asked.

"That would be aaaaaaa..." she banged on the console one more time"...negative sir."

"Any trace of magic in the signal?" Sisko asked the nearby OLIO. He was tall, with dirty blond hair and thick, black-rimmed square glasses. Contrary to most daywear for this century, he wore a dark gray turtle neck, and his denim jeans seamed out of place as well, not to mention his sand-shoes.

"None at all, that I can tell." he said nervously, double-checking the nearby consol.

"Who are you?" Bashir asked, stepping up to face the OLIO, who fumbled with the wire-covered device he was holding in an attempt to shake Julian's hand.

"Oh, I'm uh, Eric. Eric Caimo, of the uh, Auror's OLIO project." he stuttered when he had finally succeeded.

"OLIO? Lizza never mentioned that to me." Julian seemed to challenge. _Oh, boy._ Sisko thought. _And Dax said he was acting pretty normal today..._ It seemed as if Julian's recently-acquired temperament was making another unpleasantly awkward appearance.

"It's, a, it's a new system. For the Aurors." Caimo explained." On-Line Intelligence Operative. The idea is to make it so that what happened to your sister, uh, doesn't happen to any other Aurors."

"How do you know about my sister?" Julian snapped. _Rats._

"She's one of only three Aurors missing in the Gamma quadrant! I read all their files and Commander Sisko said your name so I assumed that you were _that_ Bashir." Caimo explained quickly.

Julian seemed to settle down, but still looked at Caimo with narrowed eyes.

"That, and I was her assigned Rem contact for the halfway point of the _Centurion_ 's mission.

"The Rem what-now?" Kira asked.

"A Rem stone allows witches or wizards to contact someone in their dreams. Halfway through the mission, I was supposed to come to DS9 so she could contact me and give me a midway report. It was meant as a test to check her competence in dream visiting." he told her, his stutter leaving him as he went through the motions of sharing his knowledge. _Good. Now that that stutter is gone..._

"Doctor, you and Caimo wait in my office." he said. Julian bit his lip but did as he was told. Caimo followed him, looking worried about being in the same room as Bashir...alone.

"Dax." he addressed. Her head shot up again to look at him. He glared at the nearest speaker. "Shut that thing up."

"Yes sir!" she replied tiredly.

He turned to go to his office, adding as he did so "And somebody get me Chief O'Brian!"

He marched into his office, and he heard the volume of the beeping lower a little. The Ministry of Magic officials, Julian, and Caimo all looked at him expectantly as he sank down into his chair. It had only been a few minutes, but the alarm was starting to give him a headache.

"So? Can we begin _now_ , Commander Sisko?" the foremost Ministry personnel inquired irritably. She was a stately-looking older woman, and there were several scars on her face that indicated her past as a Auror. The other official was a man of similar severity, with hawk-like blue eyes and white hair cut in military fashion. _Not_ people he would want to cross if he were a dark wizard, Sisko decided.

"Yes, you can." he sighed. He glanced at his clock. It wasn't even 13 yet. _9 more hours to go._ He groaned internally. All he wanted to do right now was sleep.

"What's going on, Sir?" Julian asked reproachfully.

"We believe we may have a way to contact Lizza Bashir. However, it will only work once, if all. It depends on whether or not she had the rem stone with her." the blue-eyed Auror informed him. At once, the doctor seemed to explode.

"And how long did you plan on keeping this to youselves!? You had the rem stone operation set up for her mission, and you've known she was alive for weeks! Are you telling me you've been making all this radio noise for nothing?!" he burst. The Auror just looked at him calmly.

"We were doing research. We've been asking around the station, and all witnesses seem to recall seeing our missing cadet with you and the local tailor. We weren't sure whether or not she would have had the rem stone with her, but at this point, all other operations have failed." The Auror continued, disregarding the outburst.

"Why the bloody ***** did you keep this from us?!" Julian continued. Sisko groaned inwardly again.

"Because we weren't sure if it would work." the Ministry woman told him, shrugging. "You have to understand, the rem stone is a highly complicated magical artifact. They are incredibly difficult to make, and they can only be used once."

"Do you mind explaining to me how they work?" Captain Sisko asked. The two officials looked at each other, and the woman took out her wand. She gave it a flick, and the glass doors of his office darkened along with the windows.

" _Muffliato_." she muttered, flicking her wand again in the direction of the door.

"Caimo, begin." she ordered. The blond nodded, and set his equipment on the floor before taking something out of his pocket. It was a stock-gray oval stone, attached to a leather string that was long enough for someone to wear around their neck.

" _This_ is a rem stone." he told them." If a witch or wizard is competent enough, they can use it to contact people in their dreams. Obviously, though, it only works if the person they're trying to contact is asleep."

"Yes, we get that part. Tell us what we _don't_ know." Julian snapped grumpily. _I really wish we could do something about his violent mood swings._

"W-well," Caimo stuttered," it also only works if you've _met_ the person. You can't have just _seen_ them; you have to know them in some way or another. Talked to them, be able to remember certain behavioral patterns, stuff like that."

"As her contact, we went out for tea the day before the _Centurion_ left. I was scheduled to arrive at DS9 a month and a half later, and take a heavy sleeping draught before going to bed, to be sure I didn't miss the appointed time. After we received news that the _Centurion_ was destroyed, my travel plans, as you could imagine, got canceled." he explained further. Sisko held up one hand to stop him from continuing.

"Why Deep Space Nine?" he asked.

"The rem stone can only reach so far. About the same distance as the average patronus, actually." Caimo said, looking just a tiny bit proud at the extent of his knowledge." Lizza's patronus managed to make it back here from the Gamma quadrant, but depending on how far away she was from it in the days after casting, the patronus would have likely have faded away before reaching its final destination if the trip had been any longer than it was."

"That doesn't answer my question." He said, eyebrow raised. _Darn these nerds and their elongated explanations!_

"Actually, it does, if you think about. With the wormhole, DS9 is the closest place to the Gamma quadrant. If the mission had been here in Alpha, Lizza would have been able to contact earth from practically any point in this quadrant. The mission would also have been a test to see if my theory would work." He told them, looking even more confident.

"And what theory might that be?" Julian asked accusatorily. Caimo seemed to melt once more under the doctor's rage. Sisko physically sighed. He knew that if he tried to talk Bashir into an attitude adjustment, he would just crossed arms and a tapping foot the whole time, along with a blank glare of "You're wasting my time".

"That, uh, that rem waves can travel through the wormhole. If that didn't work, then I would go to another outpost near the edge of the Alpha quadrant, and the _Centurion_ would send a signal through the wormhole to check in." he told them, his fidgeting starting to effect his hair, which was –or rather, had been- brushed back neatly.

"So you just went ahead and gave her an assignment without knowing it would even work?"

"Bashir!"

"What!"

"Keep in mind that this was a training run!" Commander Sisko resisted the urge to grind his teeth; the sooner they found Lizza, the better; he wasn't sure how long he could stand this new, grumpy Julian Bashir. "It was an exercise that ended up turning into a bloodbath. If they had known about their attackers, the _Centurion_ would not have been sent through."

"We are not to blame for what happened. What matters now is that we may have a way to contact Lizza." The woman pointed out. Commander Sisko racked his brain, trying to remember what she called herself.

"We came here so we could gather all available known contacts of hers. Family, friends, fellow recruits. The number of those people that we've been able to get over here is, thus far, disappointingly low." The man said. _Agent_ _Libbs,_ Sisko remembered. Bit of an odd name.

"How many?" Julian asked, a hopeful tone to his voice. _Finally, a mood_ other _than angry._

"With you and Caimo? Six. Approximately. Maybe seven, if she was told enough about that tailor." Julian's face fell back to a frown. Seven people was better than none, in Benjamin's opinion. He couldn't help but imagine what it would feel like if Jake were in Lizza's position; lost, with only seven people that could help him, on the other side of the galaxy, with means only to contact them in their dreams.

It was a feeling that Sisko didn't like.

"We'll need to contact that tailor and debrief him. If Lizza tries to contact any of the people we have gathered, they need to know what to look for; they have to be able to tell dream from reality." The woman continued.

"Okay." Julian seemed to force the word out.

"Wait." Sisko raised a hand to stop any attempt at talking any of them might have been about to make. "Why not just contact her from here, with your own Rem stone?"

"This Rem stone is a fake. It's just a prop." Caimo told him, holding up the stone.

"Commander, you have to understand; some wizards spend years making just one of these stones, they are not an easy thing to enchant." the woman told him at the same time. "We can't use one on the off chance that Bashir is still alive out there, and in range of the rem waves."

 _That... was not the right thing to say with the doctor present._ He braced himself with a sigh as rage rose on Julian's face.

"So-so, " the young doctor was beside himself with anger, fists clenching, face reddening ,"you're prepared to let my sister _rot_ in the Gamma quadrant, because it takes a while to make a stone, but you're willing to waste one in a training exercise? WHERE IS THE LOGIC IN THAT!?"

"Need I remind you; we aren't vulcans." Libbs pointed out unsympathetically. Personally, Sisko had to agree with his officer, who opened his mouth again no doubt to say something very rude.

Sisko suddenly realized that the alarm had stopped. _Thank goodness!_ The annoying beeping, combined with Bashir's mood, had started to give him a headache.

His relief was short-lived as the alarm turned back on, louder than ever, interrupting the furious doctor. He was on the verge of swearing.

"Alright, you have what you need!" he yelled over the blare." Let's hope it works!"

The ministry official waved her wand, and the tint to the office faded as she and Libbs walked out of the office. Caimo let out a small yelp, scrambling to gather his wire-covered device as he realized that the meeting had been dismissed. He left the room promptly, casting Julian an apprehensive look before waddling oddly out the door with his burden, trying to catch up with his associates before they went down the turbo lift.

"Bashir." he halted his officer before he could make it to the door, looking like he was about to go after the ministry officials with all the rage one could expect from a stress-out older brother. He didn't intend to give him a reproachful chat about his manners (which would fall on deaf ears)." Could you please tell Dax to trace the signal? And send Chief O'Brian up to help her if you see him."

"The Chief will be occupied for a little, I'm afraid." the doctor explained, teeth still clenched. "He kicked a replicator. So did Garak. And Quark. And an alarming number of other people. Oh, and a cadet on the _Destiny_ got her hand caught in an engine compartment. She's trapped in a closet with her boyfriend."

Sisko nodded." I'll send someone to help her, and I'll ask a few non-essential personnel to help out around the infirmary. "

"Thank you sir." He gave his commander a respectful nod before walking out the door stiffly.

* * *

420 days previosly...

The vorta walked stiffly into the transporter room. He had jerked the viewing band off of his head so fast that the eyepiece had snapped back into his face, and he now donned a black eye for his actions.

However, it was a sickening, wrenching feeling in his gut that made cause for his retreat to the empty room, rather than the embarrassment he had used to mask his true feelings. Upon putting the band on his head, he had seen hundreds of bodies floating in the open space, some of them with their lungs having been pulled through their mouths by the vacuum.

The images flashed through his brain once more, and he stumbled to the nearest transport pad, throwing up. Still retching, he gripped his stomach, as if willing the nausea to not return. Maybe even greater than his stomach ache was his fear; no matter how he tried to comfort his mind into thinking it wasn't true, he knew that it was.

He was defective.

And everybody knew what happened to defective vorta.

He wasn't supposed to pity the people they had slaughtered today, _murdered_ , today. And yet, he did. It wasn't something that could be helped. He had helped them commit a terrible, terrible crime, and stood by, doing nothing, saying nothing, out of fear for his own life. There was only room in the Dominion for perfection; horrible, merciless perfection, and he didn't meet the standards.

The red-headed vorta shut his eyes tight, as if by closing them he could whisk himself away to a place without fear or death, or fear of death. Soon, he opened them again, and made to back out of the transporter, so as to beam his vomit into the vacuum of space. Then the thought occurred to him that his vomit would be floating around with all the dead bodies, and he jerked forwards again, dry heaving.

And through his hazy, stinging vision, his eyes caught on something most peculiar laying on the floor, at the very back corner of the transporter.

It was a rock.

There was nothing particularly special about this rock. It was an ordinary, blank gray stone, with a double strap of brown leather looped through a hole at one end.

Then again, not all things were as they seemed, not for the vorta, or for the rock. The vorta shuttered, just as he had fifteen minutes before, as if reliving a sensation that had not at all pleased him. He had, in fact, had been experiencing this feeling ever since coming near the transporter, but had not noticed it until now. He had had this feeling, as previously mentioned, not too long ago, during the very act he was so ashamed of.

A woman of thin build, black hair, and vibrant green eyes had caused this previously mentioned feeling, a feeling that was not a feeling but more like a sense of understanding, or recognition. He bent down and took the stone up, turning it through his hand and examining every aspect of it.

After a while, this vorta, whose name you might recall as being Avon, strode towards the control panel, and beamed his puke into space. All the while, something new now occupied his mind;

The impossibility of his seemingly new-found sixth sense.

* * *

 **Ugh, I'm not even going to bother with a proper author's note. It's not like anyone actually reads this thing, anyway.**

 **L-*Daw, don't cry! We're here for you!***

 **You're a figment of my imagination.**

 **Read and REVIEW!**


	9. Unwelcome Visitors

"Sir, even if we manage to trace the signal, how do you think we'll get to them?" Major Kira pressed the next day as he sat down at his desk, sipping his coffee. Doctor Bashir would surely reprimand him on the amount of caffeine he was consuming presently(practically an overdose), but Commander Sisko had been up all night, and he really needed it.

"Your point?" he asked, barely awake. To be honest, he had kind of missed Kira's question.

"Commander, this station clearly lacks the power to defend itself, let alone rescue who-knows how many hostages, even with the cooperation of all the people that are already here." She continued. He remembered with a start the conversation he had had with Admiral Ross almost a week and a half ago.

"I have the situation handled. I contacted Admiral Ross about a week ago, and he's agreed to help me." He explained, yawning. He cast a quick glare at the sound system; the reason he had been up all night was because the beeping had not ceased.

"That's great!" the Major exclaimed, her face lighting up with surprise and curiosity." What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to go to Earth, and fill out a few weeks' worth of paper work." he yawned. Even mentioning the prospect of siting at a desk reading the papers all day made his back hurt and the tendons in his hand ache. He wasn't looking forwards to when they hurt for real.

"Paperwork for what, exactly?" she pressed eagerly.

"That's a surprise." he told her, grinning pleasantly. The only thing that would make this whole ordeal worthwhile was the looks on everybody's faces when he swooped in with the ship. Major Kira looked at him dubiously.

"I'll be leaving later today; I'm placing you in charge, and Dax has her orders." he informed her, getting to the point. A part of him felt uneasy leaving his beloved station in the hands of somebody else, even if it was for only a couple of weeks.

"We'll keep the place clean." Kira nodded." At least, we'll try to."

"Good. Dismissed." he told her. She turned and left the office.

Sighing, Sisko got to his feet, stretching. He cast another glance at the blaring speaker. _Hurry it up, Old Man_ , he thought, _before this beeping drives me insane._

* * *

"Maybe we could try a focused EM burst to shut down all the other signals?" Dax called to the backside of Chief O'Brian, who was digging around in a wall panel.

"It would stop the beeping, too." He yelled back. The horrible noise was twice as loud in here, as they had decided that gathering as many signal recipients in one place as they could would increase their chances on finding the radio trail.

Usually finding the trail of a signal wouldn't be such a big problem; but this signal was so light and small compared to all the noise everybody else on the station was making. It was like trying to find and untangle a thread of spider silk from a pile of strung beads.

Which, in case one didn't know, is extremely difficult.

Especially since the owners of said strung beads refused to remove their jewelry from the pile.

"If only they all weren't so stubborn..." she muttered under her breath as she recalled the day before, when she and Chief O'Brian had cooperated with Odo to try and get all of the noise-makers to cease their signals. A majority of them had refused, claiming that she and the Chief were too incompetent to make the plan work.

They hadn't mocked their intelligence out in the open, exactly; but Dax knew how to read between the lines. At least the Ministry had shut down their signals, and the Apalapucians had been kind enough to do so as well.

So now here they were, trying to enhance the signal enough to follow it.

"We could always ask Odo to hack into their systems and shut them down from there." she suggested.

"That would probably be qualified as an abuse of power, Dax. They've all got diplomatic immunity." O'Brian told her, voice muffled by both the wall and the noise.

"Oh, well. Worth a try." she sighed dramatically, turning to look back at the console she was working on, staring at the data so as to better understand it.

"Say what?" the Chief called.

"Nothing!" she shouted back, continuing to stare at the console. For some reason, no matter how hard she tried to run the numbers through her head, all she could think of was that persistent beeping, and the red lights that had been flashing in her face for the past twenty hours.

 _Uuug, when will it stop!?_

 _"Sisko to Dax."_ Her hand snapped to her comm badge immediately, and action that was practically instinct among Starfleet officers.

"What is it?" she asked.

 _"You and the Chief get up here to Opps immediately. You need to see this."_ came the baritone of her old friend. There was a solemn tone to his voice that sent cold trickles of dread down her spine.

"Right. We're on our way." she told him, tapping her badge once more to end the conversation. Another sense of unease wormed it's way into her mind; the signal traffic had been so terrible over the past few weeks that most comm badge signals sounded fuzzy, but even with the blaring alarm going off all around her, she could tell that Sisko's message had been clear more than ever.

"What'd you say?" O'Brian yelled out for about the hundredth time total.

"Commander Sisko want's us up in Opps." she practically screamed." It sounded important, we really should hurry!"

"Okay!" the red-headed engineer backed out of the panel, his pants scuffed and his hands dirty. He wiped his hands on his shirt as he stood up, twisting and stretching to try and loosen up the multitude of sore spots he had most likely obtained from being crouched on the floor all night.

Dax took one last look at the console before walking out the door, Chief O'Brian following close behind, stopping every once in a while to flex one of his legs. It was blissfully silent out here compared to the cacophony in the room they were leaving behind, and Dax reveled in how quite the beeping sounded out in the hallways of the station.

However, even if it was quieter, it was far less peaceful. She was surprised as she and the Chief rounded a corner into the hallways closest to the promenade; Starfleet officers were scrambling in every which way, herding citizens and carrying tools, trying to get to where they were going.

Dax and O'Brian both let out yelps of surprise as they were slammed into from behind as two of Odo's deputy's barged past them, rushing towards the promenade. _What the heck is going on here?_

"Bloody ****!?" cursed O'Brian, voicing her own thoughts in his own, accented way.

"Come on!" she shouted, running down the same pathways the deputies had taken, dodging in-between various bodies, crates, and rushing people as she did so. Dread sat like a cold stone in her gut; there was only a few reasons this much panic and activity would be going on, and none of those situations were good.

After squeezing through the crush of people at the hallway's entrance to the promenade, Dax was met with even more rushing figures. A majority of the station's citizens were being led into the numerous battle bunkers that were scattered across the promenade; large rooms with powerful kinetic barriers that could be used to shelter the station's none battle-ready inhabitants in case of an on-station threat.

Not looking back to see if Miles was still behind her, Dax weaved her way through to the turbo lift, which was also painfully crowded. She kept being knocked down and stepped on as she tried to get to the lift before it and its cargo of armed Starfleet officers.

 _Drat, this is a tight squeeze!_ She thought as O'Brian practically slammed into her in a desperate attempt to get on. She found herself packed tight in between him and a rather larger engineer who was covered with sweat. _Purple oceans! This is terrible!_

* * *

After finally climbing out of the unpleasant conditions of the turbo lift, everyone inside poured out into Opps, phaser rifles at the ready as they spread out into various formations. Commander Sisko stood in center of it all, Major Kira at his side, who was looking a Doctor Bashir worriedly.

The doctor himself was glaring mutinously at a data pad, eyes dark, yet alight with rage at the same time. Dax once again felt dread squirming in her gut- or maybe that was just her symbiont reacting to her emotions.

"Good, you here, Old Man." Sisko greeted tiredly. He looked like he desperately needed some sleep, above all else.

"What happened?" she demanded.

"Some kind of...thing beamed into Opps. It- _he_ -called himself a jem'hadar. He gave us that..." Kira gestured to the data pad in Julian's grip; Dax was pretty sure he might actually snap the pad in half , his knuckles were so white. In fact, she swore she could see blood on the edges, as if he had gripped it so hard he had hurt himself.

"They claim to have destroyed the bajoran colonies." Sisko told her." And... they claimed responsibility for the destruction of several of the missing ships."

"Let me see." she reached out to take the data pad from Julian, surprised that he let go so easily; there was, indeed, blood on his hands, and on the pad. She glanced at the list of ship names, and her heart plummeted when she saw the word _Centurion_ ; likely the cause for Julian's anger. She scrolled through the list, recognizing more and more names from the list of missing ships that Major Kira had compiled.

"He said that the Dominion wouldn't allow any more ships from the Alpha quadrant to enter through the wormhole." Sisko continued.

"That's bloody rubbish!" Chief O'Brian shouted angrily.

Sisko nodded tiredly. "I'll be leaving once we come down off of alert. Dax and O'Brian; take this chance to trace the S.O.S. signal. We got a little help from Captain Libbs."

"Yes, sir." the two of them chorused.

"The rest of you, keep at your posts until I say otherwise. Major Kira, I want all outgoing traffic to the Gamma Quadrant put to a halt; tell anyone who's still out there to return immediately and to be alert to attack vessels." the Commander ordered without pause.

" _Black_ attack vessels, Commander." Julian added unexpectantly. They all turned to him, and realization lit up on Major Kira's face.

"He's right; they were black. Black and purple." she told them, wide-eyed.

Lizza's warning echoed through Dax's head:

" _Beware the black ships. They are hostile."_ The missing Auror had been warning them about the Dominion all along, even if she hadn't realized it.

 _If only we had told people what she said!_ she thought as she realized how something as pointless as a color could have saved the crews of the 12 ships that had been lost in the past few weeks. Not that it would do them much good now.

"Alright, People! Get to work!" Sisko shouted. People scattered to their various duties, the armed guards standing with their heads erect like market sentries, turning every once in a while to check another direction.

Dax jumped down to the central console and began to trace the signal. Now that all that other radio traffic was gone, she could do her job properly. The beeping was starting to annoy her again though, even through the clamor of the other officers giving orders or shooing one another out of the way.

"Dax, I think I've got it!" O'Brian announced satisfyingly, tapping a few more buttons.

"Tracing the signal." she told him. She sensed someone coming up behind her, and glanced back briefly to see Julian, who was looking at the veiwscreen intensely. She turned back to her work. _Please, oh, please, let this work!_

A loud _ping_ sounded, and on the veiwscreen, she watched as the computer narrow down the location, little by little. Finally, it stopped, and she locked the coordinates into the station's database before they could be lost.

"We found it! It's somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant, in unexplored space." she announced. She felt like her legs might turn to jelly. They had done it! After all this time, seven people who were thought to be dead were finally going to go home. She looked back at Julian, grinning.

The expression on his face was indescribable. But she knew it was a good thing. They had found Lizza, and now they just had to go and get her. She grabbed his arm comfortingly.

"We found her." she told him. He looked as if he wasn't sure whether to be happy or more worried than ever before."We'll get her back."

"I hope so." he said, looking back up at the screen. She pulled him into a hug, and couldn't help but remember a similarly emotional day from more than a year ago.

* * *

 **So... hehe, here we are, after yet another series of months...**

 **Just been focused on other stuff, really. Nobody's really into this fic, it's so obscure.**

 **L-*We are never loved...***

 **There, there; don't worry, I still care about you.*pats head***

 **Read and REVIEW!**


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